Faculty

Panayotis Mavromatis

Associate Professor of Music and Music Education: Director of Music Theory

Panayotis Mavromatis

Phone: (212) 998-5287
Email:

Panayotis Mavromatis received his B.A. and M.A. in Mathematics from Cambridge University in England, his M.A. in Physics from Boston University, and his Ph.D. in Music Theory from the Eastman School of Music.  His research integrates cognitive science, linguistics and computer science into traditional music disciplines, including Schenkerian theory, history of theory, and post-tonal theory.  His current work focuses on the mathematical modeling of musical structure, as well as the computational modeling of musical skill and its acquisition.  In one line of research, he developed a computational model of melody in modern Greek church chant and explored its cognitive implications.  In another line of research, he pursues the educational applications of his theoretical work using Intelligent Tutoring Systems.


Research Interests

  • Music Cognition
  • Computational Modeling
  • Schenkerian Theory
  • Analysis of Early Music
  • Post-Tonal Theory
  • Byzantine Chant
  • Ethnomusicology

Selected Publications

  • Mavromatis, P. "Minimum Description Length Modeling of Musical Structure." Journal of Mathematics and Music 3/3 (2009): 117-136. (link)
  • Mavromatis, P. (2009) "A Multi-tiered Approach for Analyzing Expressive Timing in Music Performance." Communications in Computer and Information Science: Mathematics and Computation in Music, pp. 193-204. Springer Verlag. (link)
  • Mavromatis, P. (2009) "HMM Analysis of Musical Structure: Identification of Hidden Variables Through Topology-Sensitive Model Selection." Communications in Computer and Information Science: Mathematics and Computation in Music, pp. 205-217. Springer Verlag. (link)
  • Mavromatis, P. and Brown, M. "An Intelligent Tutoring System for Tonal Counterpoint: From Process to Structure." In Proceedings of the 4th Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology, Thessaloniki, Greece, 3-6 July 2008. http://web.auth.gr/cim08/ (link)
  • Mavromatis, P. "A Hidden Markov Model of Melody Production in Greek Church Chant." Computing in Musicology 14 (2005): 93-112. (link)
  • Mavromatis, P. The Echoi [Modes] of Modern Greek Church Chant in Written and Oral Transmission: A Computational Model and Its Cognitive Implications. Ph.D. Dissertation. Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, 2005. (link)
  • Mavromatis, P. and Brown, M. "Parsing Context-Free Grammars for Music: A Computational Model of Schenkerian Analysis." In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, Evanston, IL, 2004. S. D. Lipscomb, R. Ashley, R. O. Gjerdingen, and P. Webster (Eds.) Adelaide, Australia: Causal Productions. (link)
  • Mavromatis, P. "A Hidden Markov Model of Melody in Greek Church Chant." In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, Evanston, IL, 2004. S. D. Lipscomb, R. Ashley, R. O. Gjerdingen, and P. Webster (Eds.) Adelaide, Australia: Causal Productions. (link)
  • Mavromatis, P. "Set Theory." In The Harvard Dictionary of Music, 4th ed. Ed. Don M. Randel. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.
  • Brown, M. and Mavromatis, P. Review Atricle: Unfoldings by Carl Schachter. Journal of Music Theory 45/2 (2001): 457-469.

Awards

  • 2007 : University Research Challenge Fund, New York University
  • 2007 : Faculty Research Challenge Grant (Technology Award), Steinhardt School
  • 2007 : Provost's Interschool Interdisciplinary Award, University of Rochester. Co-PI: Matthew Brown, Eastman School of Music
  • 2006 : Faculty Research Challenge Grant (Summer Grant Development Award), Steinhardt School
  • 2005 : W. Gabriel Carras Junior Faculty Research Award, Steinhardt School

Selected Presentations

  • Modeling Dynamic Aspects of Mode (Echos) in Modern Greek Church Chant: A Mathematical Framework and Its Analytical Applications
    Invited paper to be presented at the First International Conference on Analytical Approaches to World Music, Amherst, MA, February 2010.
  • Analyzing Expressive Timing Data in Music Performance: A Multi-tiered Time-Scale Sensitive Approach
    Paper presented at the annual conference of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition, Indianapolis, IN, August 2009.
  • Bayesian Inference of Musical Grammars Using Hidden Markov Models
    Paper presented at the annual conference of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition, Indianapolis, IN, August 2009.
  • A Multi-tiered Approach for Analyzing Expressive Timing in Music Performance
    Paper presented at the Second International Conference on Mathematics and Computation in Music and John Clough Memorial Conference, New Haven, CT, June 2009.
  • HMM Analysis of Musical Structure: Identification of Hidden Variables Through Topology-Sensitive Model Selection
    Paper presented at the Second International Conference on Mathematics and Computation in Music and John Clough Memorial Conference, New Haven, CT, June 2009.
  • An Intelligent Tutoring System for Tonal Counterpoint: From Process to Structure
    Paper presented at the 4th Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology, Thessaloniki, Greece, July 2008. With Matthew Brown.
  • Intelligent Tutoring Systems for Music Theory: A Knowledge-Based Programming Framework
    Paper presented at the 35th Annual Meeting of the Music Theory Society of New York State, New York, NY, April 2007.
  • Middleground Patterns of Modal Polyphony: A Schenkerian Exploration of Psalm-Tone Tonalities
    Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the New England Conference of Music Theorists, Medford, MA, March 2007.
  • Parsing Context-Free Grammars for Music: A Computational Model of Schenkerian Analysis
    Paper presented at the 8th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, Evanston, IL, August 2004. With Matthew Brown.
  • A Hidden Markov Model of Melody in Greek Church Chant
    Paper presented at the 8th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, Evanston, IL, August 2004.
  • Bayesian Learning of Musical Grammars from Data
    Invited talk presented at the Eastman School of Music/University of Rochester/Cornell University Music Cognition Symposium, Rochester, NY, April 2004.
  • Hidden Markov Models of Melodic Improvisation
    Invited talk presented at the NYU Workshop on Computational and Biological Learning, January 2004.
  • A Declarative Model of Schenkerian Theory/Analysis Using Prolog
    Paper presented at the annual conference of the Society for Music Theory, Madison, WI, November 2003. With Matthew Brown.
  • A Probabilistic Model of Melodic Process in Greek Church Chant
    Paper presented at the annual conference of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition, Las Vegas, NV, June 2003.
  • Minimum Description Length: An Information-Theoretic Approach to Music Model Building
    Invited paper presented at the Southeastern Sectional Meeting of the American Mathematical Society, Baton Rouge, LA, March 2003.
  • Modeling Expertise at Tonal Composition: A Preliminary Report
    Report to the Electrical Engineering Department, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, 2000. With Matthew Brown.
  • Toward a Perceptual Model for Categorizing Atonal Sonorities
    Paper presented at the annual conference of the Society for Music Theory, Atlanta, GA, November 1999. With Virginia Williamson.
  • Categorizing Atonal Sonorities: Multidimensional Scaling, Tree-Fitting and Clustering Compared
    Paper presented at the annual conference of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition, Evanston, IL, August 1999. With Virginia Williamson.
  • Toward a Perceptual Model for Categorizing Atonal Sonorities
    Invited lecture, Penn State University, State College, PA, April 1999. With Virginia Williamson.
  • The Early Keyboard Prelude as an Agent in the Formation of Schenkerian Background Prototypes
    Paper presented at the Third International Schenker Symposium, New York, NY, March 1999.
  • Similarity of Pitch-Class Sets: A Perceptual Study
    Paper presented at the annual conference of the Society for Music Theory, Phoenix, AZ, November 1997. With Virginia Williamson.
  • The Combinatorial Model of Contour Perception
    Paper presented at the annual conference of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition, Cambridge, MA, August 1997. With Ian Quinn.
  • Similarity in Atonal Music Theory: A Perceptual Study
    Paper presented at the annual conference of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition, Cambridge, MA, August 1997. With Virginia Williamson.
  • The Perceptual Relevance of Similarity Measures in Music Theory
    Invited lecture, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, February 1997. With Virginia Williamson.