Kristen Wallentinsen is an assistant professor of Music Theory at Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts, and previously taught music theory at the University of Northern Colorado. Her current research draws on phenomenology and music perception to explore ambiguities in the perception of patterns that emerge from the repetitive fabric of minimalist music. Her first monograph, Listening Experiences in Minimalist Music, is under contract with Routledge, and she has published a related article in the Journal of Music Theory. She has presented her research at numerous national and international conferences, including the Society for Music Theory’s annual national conference, the Society for Minimalist Music’s international conference, Canada’s annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, and the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition. Additionally, she has presented, chaired sessions, and served on program selection committees for several regional music theory conferences across the continent. She maintains active interests in melodic contour, music psychology, music philosophy, 20^th-and 21^st-century music, music theory pedagogy, and the intersections of music theory and mathematics.

Wallentinsen earned his PhD in music theory from the University of Western Ontario where her dissertation, “Fuzzy Family Ties: Familial Similarity Between Melodic Contours of Different Cardinalities,” received the Society for Music Theory’s inaugural SMT-40 Dissertation Fellowship. She has received an MM in music theory and violin performance from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and a BM in violin performance from the University of Arizona.