Jack Boss

Jack Boss is a Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the University of Oregon, where he has taught since 2008. He earned a B.Mus. and M.Mus. in composition from Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in music theory from Yale University, studying under Allen Forte, David Lewin, and Claude Palisca. His research focuses on music theory, composition, and 20th-century music, particularly the works of Arnold Schoenberg and other modernist composers.

Boss’s scholarship includes three monographs: Schoenberg’s Twelve-Tone Music (2014), Schoenberg’s Atonal Music (2019), and the forthcoming Schoenberg’s Tonal Music (2024). He has also co-edited four collections of analytical essays, including Making Waves (2020) and Form and Process in Music, 1300-2014 (2016). His 15 most recent publications explore topics such as motivic processes in Schoenberg’s piano works, text-music relationships in *Verklärte Nacht* and Queen’s *Bohemian Rhapsody*, and structural coherence in atonal and serial compositions.

Boss has received prestigious honors, including the Wallace Berry Award from the Society for Music Theory (2015) for his book on Schoenberg’s twelve-tone music and the University of Oregon Fund for Faculty Excellence (2017-18). He has presented extensively across the U.S. and internationally, including lectures at Oxford University and Cambridge University. His professional service includes editorial roles for the Journal of Music Theory and Music Theory Online, and leadership in the West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis.