Matthew Arndt is an Associate Professor of Music Theory at the University of Iowa. He studies musical form, musical poetics, three-voiced chant from the Republic of Georgia, and other instances of spirituality in music. He is the author of The Musical Thought and Spiritual Lives of Heinrich Schenker and Arnold Schoenberg (Routledge, 2018). His research appear in the Journal of Music Theory, Music Theory and Analysis, Music Theory Spectrum, Theory and Practice, Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie, and other publications.

As a composer, Arndt writes primarily chamber, choral, and electronic music. Ample Lamps, an album of chamber works (MSR Classics, 2026), includes the first-ever transcription of a whale song. Arndt’s choral music can be heard in a collaborative setting of Psalm 103 (Septuagint numbering) on the album Heaven and Earth: A Song of Creation (Cappella Records, 2022).

Arndt has also taught music theory and composition at Mercer University and Lawrence University. He earned a BA with honors in Music Composition from Lewis & Clark College, an MM in Music Composition from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a PhD in Music Theory with a double minor in Music Composition and Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Publications:

• The Musical Thought and Spiritual Lives of Heinrich Schenker and Arnold Schoenberg