91˿Ƶ

Ellen Bakulina

Academic title(s): 

Associate Professor

Ellen Bakulina
Department: 
Music Research
Area(s): 
Music Theory
Contact Information
Email address: 
ellen.bakulina [at] mcgill.ca
Group: 
Area Coordinator
Faculty
Office: 
A616
Biography: 

Ellen Bakulina specializes in the theories and analysis of tonal music: musical form, analysis of meter and rhythm, Schenkerian analysis, and issues of tonal pairing and late tonality. She also specializes in the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff. Ellen’s other area is the bridging of English-language and Russian-language music scholarship via translations and various forms of synthesis of these two scholarly traditions. Prior to joining 91˿Ƶ in 2022, she taught at the University of North Texas, Yale University, and Brooklyn College. She is currently (2026-27) serving as the MTSNYS program committee chair.

Degrees: PhD (City University of New York), MA and BMus (91˿Ƶ), diploma in music theory pedagogy (College of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory)

Courses taught: Form in Romantic Music (graduate seminar), Schenkerian Theory and Analysis, Analyzing Rachmaninoff, The Art of Harmonic Reduction, Undergraduate Theory I through IV.

Forthcoming publications:

Form in Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos. Monograph. Cambridge University Press. Publication planned in 2028.

Three translations with commentary in Thinking Music: Global Sources for the History of Music Theory (ed. Thomas Christensen, Carmel Raz, and Lester Hu). Chicago University Press. Two other translations with commentary by other authors (Philip Ewell and Zivar Guseinova) in the same volume will be edited by Bakulina.

“The In-Between Function: Inter-Movement Links in the Nineteenth-Century.” Intersections, Canadian Journal of Music.

Selected publications:

“Extra measures in Rachmaninoff’s G-Minor Prelude, op. 23 no. 5.” Theory and Practice 51. 2026.

“Tonal Pairing in Two of Rachmaninoff’s Songs.” In Analytical Approaches to Russian Music, edited by Inessa Bazayev and Chris Segall. Routledge. 2021.

“The Loosening of Closure: A Form-Functional Study of Rachmaninoff’s Solo Songs.” Theory and Practice 45. 2020.

“The Brigade Textbook: Disseminating the Riemannian Legacy in the Russian-Soviet Theoretical Tradition.” Theoria 26: 85–111. 2020.

“Proto-harmony and the Problem of Tonal Centricity in Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil.” Intégral 32. 2018.

“Canons as Hypermetrical Transitions in Mozart.” Music Theory Online 23.4.2. 2017.

“Tonality and Mutability in Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil, Movement 12.” Journal of Music Theory 59. 2015.

“The Concept of Mutability in Russian Theory.” Music Theory Online 20. 2014.

“The Loosening Role of Polyphony: Texture and Formal Functions in Mozart’s ‘Haydn’ Quartets.” Intersections 32. 2013.

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