Rate My Professor Miriam Webber

Miriam Webber, PhD, serves as Associate Professor of Music and Director of the Honors Program at Bemidji State University. Her academic background includes a PhD from the University of Kansas, where her dissertation examined narrative processes within Dmitri Shostakovich’s works in relation to Soviet literary theory. She earned a Master of Music in Music Theory from the University of Kansas, analyzing late Shostakovich works through post-tonal and Tonnetz-based methodologies in her master’s thesis; a Master of Music in Bassoon Performance from McGill University; and a Bachelor of Music in Bassoon Performance from Ball State University. Research specializations include music theory, particularly Shostakovich studies incorporating Bakhtinian concepts, as well as emotion, pedagogy, and performance studies. She has presented papers at university events and international conferences and published an article in The Double Reed, journal of the International Double Reed Society. A forthcoming book, Bakhtin and the Music of Dmitri Shostakovich: Analysis as Dialogue (Routledge, 2026), applies Bakhtin’s literary thought—such as carnival, chronotope, heteroglossia, polyphony, and novelization—to Shostakovich’s music across songs, operas, and symphonies.