Ryan Galik is a music theory PhD student and Sproull fellow in his first year at Eastman. His research investigates the intersections of genre theory, media studies, and music perception and cognition in ambient, minimalist, and avant-garde music. Ryan is also an avid cinephile who explores cinematic diegeses through literature on semiotics and musical narrative agency. His past life as an elementary music teacher is resurfacing through a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy on the application of an elementary music literacy methodology, Conversational Solfège, to collegiate aural skills instruction.

Ryan has presented his research at various regional and national conferences. His paper on flow states and Tim Hecker’s 2013 album Virgins, titled, “Don’t Pop the Bubble,” received both the Dorothy Payne award at the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic’s 2023 meeting and the Student Presentation award at the 2023 national SMT conference in Denver. His research on “Metadiegesis in Recorded Music and Film” received the Colvin Student Paper award at the Texas Society of Music Theory’s 2023 meeting, and his latest project, “What Conversational Solfège Teaches Us About Teaching Collegiate Aural Skills” received the best student paper award at the 2024 Pedagogy Into Practice conference.

In his spare time, Ryan works as a freelance engraver, trains as a long-distance cyclist, and sneaks in moves on chess.com three minutes before his games time out. He enjoys watching movies no one has heard of, buying records he doesn’t need and, most recently, is trying his hand at squash as he survives his first winter in Rochester.”