Ian David Bent (born 1 January 1938)[1] is a British-born music scholar.
He is now Professor Emeritus, after retiring from Full Professor of Music, at Columbia University and Honorary Professor in the History of Music Theory at the University of Cambridge.
His earliest research dealt with the early history of the English Chapel Royal, but later he turned to the history of theory and analysis, and is now a historian of music theory.
[1] He is the editor (since 1991) of the Cambridge Studies in Music Theory and Analysis series and an area editor for the second edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music.
[2] As of 2011[update], he is the director of Schenker Documents Online.