Dr. Chelsea Oden is a film music scholar and adjunct professor at Adams State University.

Two questions that motivate her research are: How does music move us? And, How can music teach us about the interconnectedness of our world? Pursuing these questions, her research centers on timbre and embodiment in the overlap of film, music, and dance. Special interests include cinematic moments that toy with physics (such as time travel, sublime encounters, spellcasting, and buoyant dance scenes), the cinematic piano as a site of cultural study, choreomusicality in Sia-Ziegler-Heffington-Askill music video collaborations, and Thomas Newman’s playful and introspective film scoring.

She is thrilled to have contributed the chapter, “Timbre in Film Music – Making Magic Through Tone Color,” to the recently published Film Music Analysis: Studying the Score, edited by Frank Lehman and available on Amazon.com and Routledge. You can also check out her 2023 SMT-V video article, “We are dancing, We are Flying”: The Feeling of Flight in Dance Scenes from Recent Popular Film, which includes analyses of dance scenes in The Witcher (2019), The Dragon Prince (2018), La La Land (2016), and WALL-E (2008). You can read more of her work on music, film, and dance in her 2021 article, “Dance as Political Activism: Two Popular Choreomusical Responses to the Orlando Shooting,” and in her dissertation.

In addition to her published scholarship, she stays engaged in the academic community through public lectures and conference papers at national and international conferences, including MaMI, AMS, and SMT. Most recently, she presented “Film Music and Wormholes: Underscoring the Einstein-Rosen Bridge” in a public lecture at Adams State University. A full list of conference presentations can be found in her CV. She is also honored to have served as a guest lecturer at Gonzaga University, Harvard University, and Michigan State University.

In combination with her research, teaching remains one of her greatest passions. She strives to compassionately meet students where they are, provide them with the tools to achieve their goals, and inspire curiosity and humor along the way. She has taught music in the college setting for more than 10 years, including music theory, aural skills, keyboard skills, orchestration, applied composition, applied clarinet, and various seminars. She enjoys teaching and designing courses for both in-person and on-line experiences at undergraduate and graduate levels, and is thankful to have taught and designed music courses at Adams State University,  the University of Oregon, and The New School. She was honored to receive the 2020 Graduate Teaching Award from the University of Oregon’s School of Music and Dance.

She grew up in Colorado and graduated from Adams State University in Fall 2013 with a BA in Music Education (K-12), a minor in clarinet performance, and a BLA in Music with emphasis in composition. She completed her MA in Music Theory at the University of Oregon in 2016 and earned her PhD in Music Theory from the University of Oregon in 2021.

When she’s not nerding out about timbre and embodiment, she enjoys getting outdoors with her partner in crime, snuggling their cat and dogs, and doing creative things with yarn.