I have pursued several kinds of connections among music, Christian theology, and spirituality more generally.

In the most extensively developed of these projects, I build on Maynard Solomon’s work on Beethoven’s later-life spiritual pursuits in his book Late Beethoven.  In one article draw connections between the string quartet in A minor, op. 132, and Beethoven’s spiritual explorations, and in another I examine the nature of Beethoven’s interest in the theologian Johann Michael Sailer.

I have also pursued connections between music and Christian theology in a book chapter looking at the long history of connections between music and mathematics, a chapter that also has a significant cognitive orientation.

“Johann Michael Sailer and Beethoven,” 2014, in Bonner Beethoven-Studien 11, ed. Bernhard R. Appel, Joanna Cobb Biermann, and Julia Ronge, 83-91. Bonn: Beethoven-Haus Bonn.

“Spiritual Narratives in Beethoven’s Quartet, Op. 132,” 2013, Journal of Musicology 30.3, 330-368.

“Beethoven’s Worldviews and the Quartet Op. 132,” Forum on Music and Christian Scholarship, South Bend, IN, February 2009.

“On Music, Mathematics, and Theology: Pythagoras, the Mind, and Human Agency,”2011, in Resonant Witness: Conversations between Music and Theology, ed. Jeremy Begbie and Steven Guthrie, 109-134. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.