The MHL is the home of music theory research. One of the focuses is on the late 19th and 20th centuries: Prof. Dr. Oliver Korte researches, among others things, the music of Gustav Mahler and Bernd Alois Zimmermann. Professor Aloyse Michaely wrote several standard works on Olivier Messiaen and also published on Igor Stravinsky and Witold Lutoslawski. A longer-term research project on the history and systematics of set models of the Renaissance is being conducted in close cooperation with Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. MHL is authorized to award doctorates in the fields of Musicology, Music Theory and Music Education. Currently, four music theory dissertations are being established (programs for figured bass teachings in the 19th century, reconstruction strategies of fragmentary works of the 17th century, Bernd Alois Zimmermann's opera "Die Soldaten" and "macro harmony" by Gustav Mahler). The doctoral students of all three subjects mentioned above meet regularly with their mentors in the interdisciplinary doctoral colloquium and discuss their research results. A publication of the medium practiced in Lübeck music theory research is the series "Writings of the Lübeck Academy of Music," published by the Olms Verlag and put out by Oliver Korte. In 2014, the first volume "Methods of Canon Composition with Josquin des Prez and his contemporaries" by Immanuel Ott. Volume 2 for experimental composition pedagogy is in preparation. Members of the specialist group for Music Theory/Ear Training at the MHL are: