Dr. Alexander K. Rothe is a music and liberal arts professor, educator, and mentor with more than ten years of experience working with university and high school students. His teaching brings together music, history, religion, philosophy, and the arts, with an emphasis on helping students make connections across disciplines, engage thoughtfully with primary sources, and develop as curious and independent thinkers.

Teaching and mentoring are at the center of Dr. Rothe’s work. He teaches undergraduate courses in the humanities and music and works individually and in small groups with high school students through academic mentoring and SAT preparation. His approach emphasizes conceptual understanding, conversation, intellectual curiosity, and experiential learning. He is particularly interested in helping students discover connections between what they study in the classroom and the larger cultural and intellectual worlds around them.

Dr. Rothe’s scholarly and teaching interests span the humanities, with particular expertise in music. His research interests include music performance studies, music cognition, Western art music, and interdisciplinary approaches to music and culture. More broadly, his humanities teaching explores history, religion, philosophy, literature, and the arts and the ways these fields offer different perspectives on human experience. His current public-facing work includes writing about music and the humanities for students and general readers.

Dr. Rothe earned his Ph.D. in Historical Musicology from Columbia University in 2015 and subsequently served as a Core Lecturer in Columbia’s undergraduate Core Curriculum. He also served as Lecturer of Musicology at Northern Arizona University and as a Graduate Instructor at Columbia. His research has been published in The Musical Quarterly, The Opera Quarterly, and Current Musicology, and he has presented his work at national and international conferences. His research has received support from the Fulbright Program and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Before pursuing his doctorate, Dr. Rothe completed Northwestern University’s five-year dual-degree program, earning a B.A. with honors in German and a B.M. with honors in Music Cognition. His interdisciplinary education continues to shape his approach to teaching, scholarship, and mentoring: bringing different fields into conversation and helping students discover meaningful connections among ideas.