Austin Patty joined the faculty of the Lee University School of Music as an Assistant Professor of Music in the fall of 2006. He received his Ph.D. in music theory from the Eastman School of Music in the summer of 2006, upon completion of his doctoral dissertation, “A Theory of Pacing Scenarios with Application to Brahms’s Violin Sonatas.” Before coming to Lee, he taught as an Instructor at the Eastman School of Music (2001-2005).   He enjoys sharing his love for music with students and exploring with them how we, as composers and performers, can create and shape music and how music is able to move us in profound ways.

Dr. Patty has delivered presentations at regional and national music theory conferences on metrical change, rhythm, form, and the music of Brahms. His article, “Pacing Scenarios: How Harmonic Rhythm and Melodic Pacing Influence Our Experience of Musical Climax,” will appear in the fall 2009 volume of the journal Music Theory Spectrum. As an undergraduate in the Robert D. Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon, he received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for work on his senior thesis, “Elements of Moravian Folk Music in Leos Janácek’s Second String Quartet.” 

Dr. Patty loves to take long walks, preferably on forested mountain paths, with his lovely wife, Lisa, and to play with his three small children, Sylvie Anne, Lewis, and Gregory Benjamin.