Dr. Seth Monahan’s research focuses on issues of musical meaning, interpretation, and epistemology. He has published extensively on the intersection of form and narrative design in the symphonies of Gustav Mahler, as well as on a range of other topics, including the rhetoric of music analysis, harmony and voice-leading in Wagner’s late style, musical energetics, embodiment studies, and form in Classical/Romantic instrumental music. He has twice earned the Society for Music Theory’s Emerging Scholar Award: first for “Action and Agency Revisited” (Journal of Music Theory, 2013) and then for Mahler’s Symphonic Sonatas (Oxford University Press, 2015). Recently, he co-edited Musical Meaning and Interpretation: Perspectives, Reflection, Critique (Oxford University Press, 2025), an essay collection dedicated to former Yale Department of Music Professor James Hepokoski.

Monahan is also deeply involved in the pedagogy of music theory. He has published several essays on undergraduate theory instruction, and his ongoing YouTube series (“Basics of Classical Harmony and Counterpoint”) has had over a million views since 2016. These and other initiatives have earned him numerous distinctions, including the University of Rochester’s Edward Peck Curtis Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. 

At the Yale School of Music, Monahan is the Chair of the Doctor of Musical Arts Committee. He also teaches core musicianship classes and seminars on music analysis. He previously served as Associate Professor of Music Theory and Chair of the Music Theory Department at the Eastman School of Music.

Monahan earned a Bachelor of Music degree in composition from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where he also studied guitar; a Master of Music degree in music theory from Temple University; and a Ph.D. from Yale University.