Megan Lyons

Megan Lyons is a dedicated teacher and innovative theorist committed to an active classroom filled with engaging content. Her research areas include music theory pedagogy, music encoding and its analysis, Joni Mitchell’s use of alternate guitar tunings, and the art songs of Amy Beach. She has presented her research at regional, national, and international conferences over the past few years. Along with co-author Philip Ewell, their chapter “Don’t You Cry for Me: A Critical-Race Analysis of Undergraduate Music Theory Instruction” appears in the edited volume Teaching and Learning Difficult Topics in the Music Classroom. Most recently, her co-authored article "Chords of Inquiry: Alternate Guitar Tunings, Harmony, and Text-Music Relations in Joni Mitchell’s Early Songs" was published in Music Theory Spectrum, one of the field's top journals.

In 2019, she proposed a new audio publication to the Society for Music Theory—SMT-Pod. Her vision as founder and co-chair was, and still is, to bring music academia into a modern era through various mediums. SMT-Pod designed an Open Collaborative Peer Review Process to give authority to authors and maximize productive collaboration amongst peers. Megan's hope through her work on SMT-Pod and her pedagogical research is to make music theory more approachable and relevant for future generations.

Megan attended the University of Delaware where she earned a Bachelor of Music in Music Education and Music Theory. While completing her undergraduate studies, she was a winner of multiple concerto competitions performing on piccolo. Megan completed her Masters in Music Theory and Flute Performance at CUNY Hunter College where she was granted a full-tuition Cutler Scholarship for her performance capabilities. She received her PhD in Music Theory and History from the University of Connecticut in May 2022 after completing her dissertation "Unsung: A Corpus Study on the Art Songs of Amy Beach."

In her free time, Megan enjoys going on long runs, completing sudoku puzzles, and doing escape rooms.

Honors and Awards

• Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award - University of Connecticut, 2021
• Founder and Co-Chair - SMT-Pod, 2021-present
• Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship - University of Connecticut, 2021
• Cutler Scholar in Orchestral Performance - CUNY Hunter College, 2016-2018
• Major John DeMartini Scholarship for Humanitarianism - University of Delaware, 2015

Education

• Ph.D., University of Connecticut
• M.A., CUNY Hunter College
• B.M., University of Delaware