Stanley Ralph Fink is a lecturer of music theory at the University of Illinois Chicago. Previously, he was an instructor of music theory at the University of Alabama, a visiting assistant professor of music theory at Drake University, and a lecturer at James Madison University. Fink holds a Ph.D. in music theory from Florida State University, where he was a Legacy Fellow. He also has an M.M. in music theory from Indiana University, Bloomington.
Fink is in joyful pursuit of researching twentieth- and twenty-first-century opera, post-tonal analysis, and musical representations of stigma and trauma; additionally, he researches form and harmony in popular music. His articles have appeared in Music Theory Online, the Journal of Music Theory, and Popular Music.
Fink has presented his research at both national and regional conferences, including the Society for Music Theory, the Society for American Music, the North American British Music Studies Association, the Theorizing African American Music conference, and several regional music theory societies. From 2017 to 2020, Fink served as co-chair for the Music Theory Forum at Florida State University. From 2020 to 2024, Fink served on the Society for Music Theory’s Development Committee. In 2025, a syllabus that Fink authored entitled “Music Analysis and Intersectionality” received an honorable mention from the Society for Music Theory’s Diversity Course Design Committee.
An accomplished keyboardist, Fink served as répétiteur for ten of the Princeton Festival’s opera productions between 2011 and 2019. He studied piano with Jean-Louis Haguenauer, Shigeo Neriki, and Robert Durso.