Martin Ross
Office: TC 322
Email: mross255@uwo.ca
Martin Ross (he/him) is an Assistant Professor of Music Theory at Western University. He received his Ph.D. from Western in 2023—his dissertation, “Gesture in Steve Reich’s Music and its Signification,” uses gesture and Peircean semiotics to explore subjective levels of attention, influence, and understanding in Steve Reich’s music from the late 1960s to the mid 1980s. He also holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Clarinet Performance, with distinction, from University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a Master of Music degree in Music Theory from University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Martin’s disciplinary specialization is in musical modernisms of the twentieth century, specifically minimalist music. His analytical specializations are on semiotics, gesture, musical meaning, and other subjective frameworks. He has presented papers at scholarly conferences across North America and Europe, and currently serves as Secretary for the Society for Minimalist Music.
In April 2024, Martin was published in an edited volume entitled Music and its Narrative Potential. His contribution, “Indexing a Narrative: Gestural Patterns, Plentitude, and Cultural Metonymy in Steve Reich’s Music for Pieces of Wood,” explored narrative possibility in Reich's purely rhythmic work. He currently has a journal article under review on gesture and semiotics in process music. Other ongoing research includes sonic iconicity in Arvo Pärt's tintinnabuli music as well as phenomenological experience in video game music.
