Sonja G. Wermager

Sonja Wermager is a Lecturer in the Department of Music. Her research examines the intersection of religion, medicine, and music in nineteenth-century Germany. Her book project investigates how the concept of melancholy, both aesthetic and medical, shaped understandings of musical genius throughout the nineteenth century. 

Her research on Robert Schumann has been published in 19th-Century Music and Clara and Robert Schumann in Context. Her dissertation, supervised by Walter Frisch, explored Schumann's sacred music. She also has a background in Reformation studies and published on sixteenth-century psalmody in the Yale Journal of Music & Religion. She was previously a Dissertation Fellow with Columbia's Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life and an Early Career Fellow in the Department of Music. She has presented research at domestic and international conferences including American Musicological Society and German Studies Association annual meetings. 

A committed teacher, she has been extensively involved in pedagogy initiatives with Columbia's Center for Teaching and Learning and in 2020, received the Core Preceptor Award for Teaching Excellence. She has taught at both Columbia and Williams College, offering a variety of classes for music majors and non majors alike. 

She completed a B.A. in Music and History at St. Olaf College and a M.A. in Renaissance, Reformation, and Early Modern Studies at the University of Birmingham (UK), where she received the U.S. Postgraduate Student Scholarship and graduated with distinction. She also served as an AmeriCorps volunteer working with high school seniors on college access and affordability.