Marina Karaseva is a Russian musicologist, composer, music theorist, and music educator. She was born in Moscow on August 8, 1958. She is a professor at the Moscow State Conservatory named after Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, where she has taught since 1982.
Karaseva began studying music at age five with her grandmother, a piano teacher. She studied piano, solfeggio, and composition before graduating with honors from the conservatory’s music school in 1973. She completed the theoretical department of the Music College at the Moscow Conservatory in 1977 and the conservatory’s theory and composition faculty in 1982. She completed postgraduate study there in 1988, earned a candidate degree in 1989 with a dissertation on theoretical problems in modern solfeggio, and received a doctorate in arts in 2000 for her research on solfeggio as a psychotechnique for developing musical hearing.
From 1982 to 1996, she taught music theory subjects at the Central Music School attached to the Moscow Conservatory. At the conservatory, she has taught solfeggio and harmony to musicologists, composers, choral conductors, and instrumental students. She led the conservatory’s computing center in 2002–2003, and from 2002 to 2009 taught courses on music in advertising and the social psychology of music at the psychology faculty of Moscow State University. From 2005 to 2012, she taught a course on the sociology of music at the Higher School of Economics.
Karaseva’s research covers solfeggio, musical hearing and its development, the psychology and sociology of music, and music education. She has published more than 50 works, including teaching materials, books, and articles. Her books include Modern Solfeggio, Solfeggio: A Psychotechnique for Developing Musical Hearing, Music in Advertising, and Japanese Solfeggio: The Art of Melodic Intonation. From 1999 to 2000, she held a Fulbright scholarship at the University of Maryland, where she researched musical psychotechnology. She has also led training sessions and master classes in Russia and abroad and regularly presented at international academic conferences from 2000.
Karaseva co-founded Splayn, a social network for musicians, and serves as the Moscow Conservatory’s curator of the network. In 2010, she received the title Honored Artist of Russia for her contributions to the arts.