In “Sounds for Adventurous Listeners,” I argue that Conover’s role in the dissemination of jazz through the Music USA Jazz Hour was more influential on an educational level than what literature on Conover currently provides. Chapter 2 begins with an examination of current studies regarding the role of jazz in Cold War diplomacy, the sociopolitical implications of avant-garde jazz and race, the convergence of fandom and propaganda, the promoter as facilitator of musical trends, and the influence of international radio during the Cold War. In chapter 3 I introduce the Friends of Music USA Newsletter and explain its function as a record of overseas jazz reception and a document that cohered a global network of fans. I then focus on avant-garde debates of the 1960s and discuss Conover’s role overseas and in the United States. Chapter 4 engages social purpose and jazz criticism in the 1960s. I discuss Conover’s philosophy on social responsibility, and how his contributions intersected with other relevant discourses on race on the eve of the civil rights movement. I argue that Conover embodied two personas: one as jazz critic and promoter in the United States, and the other as an international intermediary. In chapter 5 I …

Premiering at the twilight of the gauchesco era and the dawn of Argentine musical Modernism, El matrero (1929) by Felipe Boero (1884-1958) remains underexplored in terms of its social milieu and artistic heritage. Instantly hailed as a masterpiece, the work retains a place in the local repertory, though it has never been performed internationally. The opera draws on myths of the gaucho and takes further inspiration from the energized intellectual environment surrounding the one-hundred-year anniversary of Argentine Independence. The most influential writers of the Centenary were Leopoldo Lugones (1874-1938), Ricardo Rojas (1882-1957), and Manuel Gálvez (1882-1962). Their times were marked by contradictions: xenophobia and the desire for foreign approbation; pride in an imaginary, "barbaric" yet noble ideal wiped out by the "civilizing" ambitions of revered nineteenth-century leaders. Krausism, a system of ideas following the teachings of Karl Friedrich Krause (1781-1832), had an impact on the period as exhibited in the political philosophy of Hipólito Yrigoyen (1852-1933), who served as president from 1916 to 1922 and 1928 to 1930 when he was deposed by a right-wing coup d'état. Uncritical applications of traditional understandings of nationalism have had a negative impact on Latin American music scholarship. A distillation of scholarly conceptions of …

While the development of hagiography over time has long attracted the attention of medievalists, scholars have not fully explored the critical role of the liturgy in prompting and transmitting these changes. This dissertation examines the liturgies for the patron saints of three musical and ecclesiastical centers in medieval Aquitaine: the cathedrals of Saint-Trophime in Arles, Saint-Just-et-Saint-Pasteur in Narbonne, and Saint-Étienne in Toulouse. Through the music, texts, and ritual actions of the liturgy, the clerical communities of these three institutions reinforced some aspects of their patron saint's legendary biography and modified others. Yet the process unfolded differently at each cathedral, revealing the particular preferences of the canons of each community as well as their changing circumstances during the Middle Ages. In Arles, the office for St. Trophime, which was likely composed at the cathedral, shows dramatic changes in the saint's hagiography. The clerics in Narbonne also composed an office for their patron saints but did not substantially change the details of Justus and Pastor's legendary biography. In Toulouse, the canons selected from among the preexisting repertoire of chants and texts available for St. Stephen, crafting liturgies that were particular to Saint-Étienne within a clearly Aquitanian context. By revealing the ways in …