Ya-Hui Cheng

Assistant Professor of Music Theory

Email: chengy@usf.edu
Phone: (813) 974-2311

Ya-Hui Cheng has taught Music Theory at USF since 2015. Previously she taught at the Fort Valley State University from 2009 to 2015. Cheng, a native of Taiwan, received her Bachelor degree in Music from Queens College, City University of New York, Master degree in Music Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and Ph.D. in Music Theory from Florida State University. 

Cheng was the recipient of the National Opera Association Dissertation Competition Biennial prize and the author of Puccini’s Women: Structuring the Role of Feminine in Puccini’s Operas (Verlag Dr. Müller, 2009). Her articles appear in Musicology Now, China Policy Institute Analysis Online Journal, The Opera Journal, and Journal of Historical Research in Music Education. In addition, she has given papers at national and international conferences on Chinese Popular music, cross-strait music cultures, and Giacomo Puccini in the United States, Europe, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, and China.

She has won numerous awards and grants, including Florida Education Fund’s McKnight Fellowship, University of South Florida’s New Research Grant, Summer Scholar Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Public Scholar Fellowship from the Kettering Foundation. Ya-Hui Cheng was a co-chair for the Analysis of World Music Interest Group and a committee member on Race and Ethnicity (former title: Committee on Diversity)—both belonging to the Society for Music Theory. Her research focuses on transcultural sounds in Chinese Popular Music, exoticism in Italian Operas, and Buddhist music in the Mahayana tradition. She is currently working on a monograph that examines the emergence of Chinese Jazz, Rock, and Hip Hop in Taiwan and China and the impacts of these genres on the development of cross-strait music cultures.