Dr. Joseph Siu

Dr. Joseph Chi-Sing Siu is an Associate Teaching Professor of Music Theory at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), where he also serves as Associate Department Chair, Undergraduate Program Director, Department Advisor, and Music Theory Area Coordinator. Beyond the Department of Music, he mentors students in the Individualized Study Program (INDS) on topics related to music cognition and perception and serves as affiliate faculty with the Asian Studies Program.

Joseph earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Music Theory from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, supported by a Doctoral Fellowship Award from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He holds a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance with distinction from the University of Western Ontario, where he was awarded the UWO Gold Medal upon graduation. To further develop leadership and management expertise for his administrative roles, he completed an M.B.A. at the University of Maryland Global Campus. He also participated in UMBC’s Office of the Provost Inaugural Leadership Development Mentoring Program (2023–2024) and was selected for the inaugural cohort of the LEAP Leadership Development Academy, organized by FranklinCovey in partnership with UMBC’s Human Resources and Strategic Talent Management Department.

Joseph’s research interests include phrase rhythm and musical form, music cognition and perception, and music theory pedagogy. He was awarded the Faculty Pedagogy Fellowship (2021–2023) by UMBC’s Center for Innovation, Research, and Creativity in the Arts (CIRCA). He has presented his music theoretical work at numerous conferences, including the Society for Music Theory (2024, 2020), European Music Analysis Conference (2017, 2014), the Canadian University Music Society (2017, 2016, 2014), the West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis (2017), the South Central Society for Music Theory (2017, 2014), the Music Theory Society of New York State (2016), Music Theory Midwest (2016), and the Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory (2014). Joseph received the SOCAN Foundation/George Proctor Prize for Best Graduate Student Paper at the 2017 conference of the Canadian University Music Society for his paper, “Reexamining the Loosely-Knit Subordinate Theme in the Classical Style: A Phrase-Rhythmic Approach,” and was also awarded the Best Student Paper Award at the 2014 conference of the South Central Society for Music Theory for his paper, “Hypermetrical Shift in Haydn’s Late Monothematic Sonatas.” Elected to the Executive Board of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic (MTSMA) in 2018, he served as Treasurer from 2020 to 2025 and has also held positions as Program Committee Chair (2021) and Local Arrangements Chair (2019). His recent scholarship includes two book chapters on vocal music by Chinese composers: “Metrical Dissonance and Phrase Grouping in Hwang Yau-Tai’s Oblivion [黃友棣 – 遺忘]”, published in Modeling Musical Analysis (Oxford University Press, 2025), and “Metrical Dissonance and Hypermetric Downbeats in Hins Cheung’s Missing [張敬軒 – 缺]”, forthcoming in Modeling Popular Musical Analysis.

As an interdisciplinary researcher, Joseph has collaborated with faculty and students in the Departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, and Linguistics at the University of Rochester on projects supported by the UR Provost’s Multidisciplinary Award (2012–2013). More recently, he has collaborated with dermatologists and medical students on research examining the efficacy of clinical music interventions for pruritus (2025–2026). Joseph has received competitive travel and fellowship awards from multiple organizations. In summer 2016, he received an all-inclusive travel award from the National Science Foundation to present at the International Conference on Mobile Brain-Body Imaging and the Neuroscience of Art, Innovation, and Creativity in Cancun, Mexico. That same summer, he was selected as a Music Fellow by the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where he participated in and delivered a public TED-style talk at the 3rd International “Exploring the Mind through Music” Conference. His music cognition research has also been presented at the Future Directions of Music Cognition International Conference (2021), the Society for Music Perception and Cognition (2015, 2013), the Center for Research on Brain, Language and Music (2013), the New England Conference of Music Theorists (2013), and the Northeast Music Cognition Group (2012). From 2012 to 2014, Joseph served as Manager of the Eastman Music Cognition Lab. His co-authored publications include “In Their Own Words: Analyzing the Extents and Origins of Absolute Pitch,” published in Psychology of Music (March 2019), and “Perspectives on Art-Science Collaborations,” published in SciArt Magazine (June 2017). From 2020 to 2022, his music cognition research was supported by a UMBC College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Dean’s Research Award.

Prior to joining UMBC in 2017, Joseph taught graduate and undergraduate music theory at the Eastman School of Music, serving as a Teaching Assistant from 2011 to 2016 and as Summer Session Faculty from 2016 to 2017. In recognition of his exceptional teaching, he was awarded the Teaching Assistant Prize for Excellence in Teaching by Eastman in 2015. Earlier in his career, Joseph taught music and science at the International Christian Quality Music Secondary and Primary School (2009–2011) in Hong Kong, his hometown.

M.B.A., University of Maryland Global Campus (2024)
Ph.D. Music Theory, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester (2020)
M.A. Music Theory, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester (2015)
B.Mus. Piano Performance, University of Western Ontario (2009)