Dr. Houlahan is a professor of Music Theory and Solfege. Prior to this position, he was a professorial lecturer at Georgetown University, Washington D.C., where he taught music theory, 20th century music and medieval music. He was awarded an Irish Arts Council Scholarship for graduate studies in Hungary and a Fulbright Scholarship for doctoral studies at the Catholic University of America in the United States.

Dr. Houlahan holds a Ph.D. in Music Theory with a minor in Kódály Studies, a Kodály Diploma from the Franz Liszt Academy of Music/Zoltan Kodály Pedagogical Institute of Music in Hungary and the Kodály Center of America, and Fellowships in Piano Performance from Trinity College and London College of Music. His publications have appeared in such journals as: Indiana Theory Review, Music Educators Journal, Kodály Envoy, Bulletin of the International Kodály Society, and the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy. Other research, co-authored with Dr. Philip Tacka, is contained in four volumes of Sound Thinking: Developing Musical Literacy, Vols. I and II, and Sound Thinking: Music for sight-singing and Ear Training, Vols. I and II. All books are published by Boosey and Hawkes (New York and London). His interest in historical concerns and musicology are represented in his current publication (co-written with Dr. Philip Tacka and funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities), Zoltán Kodály: A Guide to Research published by Garland in 1998.

Dr. Houlahan also co-authored the New Grove Dictionary article on Zoltán Kodály. He has lectured on music theory and Kodály studies in Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Estonia, Netherlands, and England. Dr. Houlahan and Dr. Tacka’s latest publication is Kódály Today: A Cognitive Approach to Music Education is being published by Oxford University Press (2008) and From Sound to Symbol, Fundamentals of Music published by Oxford University Press (2008).