Janet Bourne

Janet Bourne is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Music at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Director of Undergraduate Studies. Her work bridges music theory, cognitive science, and film studies, focusing on listener experience and interpretation. She holds a PhD in Music Theory and Cognition from Northwestern University and previously served as a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Bates College.

Her research explores cognitive frameworks for analyzing music through diverse listener perspectives, with emphases on postmillennial Hollywood film scores and Austro-Germanic music of the long eighteenth century. She founded and directs the UCSB Music Cognition Lab, investigating how listeners perceive and assign meaning to music.

Publications include contributions to the Oxford Handbook of Cinematic Listening (2023), Music Theory Online, and Frontiers in Neuroscience. Her forthcoming book Who Listens? (Oxford University Press) proposes a novel analytical framework for listener-centric musical interpretation.

• Awards: 2023 SMT Film Award, 2018 Dorothy Payne Award
• Lab: UCSB Music Cognition Lab (ucsbmusiccognitionlab.weebly.com)