Sonja G. Wermager

Sonja Wermager’s research focuses on intersections of religion, medicine, and music in nineteenth-century Germany. She defended her dissertation, “Robert Schumann and ‘The Artist’s Highest Goal:’ Religion, Romanticism, and Nation in the Late Choral Works,” in May 2023 at Columbia University.

She has recently published articles in 19th-Century Music and Sacred and Secular Intersections in Music of the Long Nineteenth Century, and has an upcoming chapter in Clara and Robert Schumann in Context. She also maintains interests in Reformation studies and has published on sixteenth-century psalmody in the Yale Journal of Music & Religion. She was previously an Early Career Fellow at the Columbia Department of Music and a dissertation fellow with Columbia’s Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life. She has presented at domestic and international conferences including American Musicological Society and German Studies Association annual meetings.

A committed teacher, she previously taught both music and literature in Columbia’s Core Curriculum and held multiple fellowships at Columbia’s Center for Teaching and Learning. She received the Core Preceptor Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2020. At Williams her teaching focuses on music of the Classical and Romantic periods. 

Prior to doctoral studies at Columbia, Sonja 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.