Andrew Goldman is a music theorist specializing in music cognition. He completed his PhD in 2015 at the University of Cambridge with Prof. Ian Cross on the cognition of musical improvisation. He is a Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience at Columbia University, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the music department. His current work focuses on developing theories of improvisation that are compatible with explanatory frameworks from cognitive science and neuroscience. He also conducts EEG experiments to test these theories. His work has been published in music theory and music psychology journals. Andrew co-organizes Columbia’s Embodied Cognition Reading Group and the Comparing Domains of Improvisation discussion group. He is a concert pianist and composer.  In 2014, his one-act musical entitled Science! The Musical, for which he wrote the music, lyrics, and book, was performed in Cambridge for a run of five performances at the Corpus Playroom. 

Andrew received a BM in Piano Performance and a BA in Neuroscience from the University of Southern California.  He has studied piano with Mitzi Kolar and Daniel Pollack, composition with Erica Muhl, and clarinet with Charlie Ellis-MacLeod.  After graduating, he worked at the Brain and Creativity Institute in Los Angeles researching the neuroscience of social emotions with Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and Antonio Damasio.  He has also taught at the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina.