Wayne Barrington was a tenured member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for ten years and held positions with the LA Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, and San Antonio Symphony. He was an early member of the Chicago Brass Ensemble and a founding member of the LA Brass. While performing in these major orchestras and brass quintets, Barrington played alongside many notable musicians including Philip Farkas, Forrest Standley, Arnold Jacobs, Bud Herseth, Frank Crisafulli, Miles Anderson, Roger Bobo, David Krebhiel, and Christopher Leuba. Many of these musicians mentioned have received recognition in books and dissertations for their achievements as performers and pedagogues. Barrington, however, has not. Barrington was also a founding member and secretary of ICSOM, the International Conference of Symphony and Orchestra musicians. This organization helped improve the working conditions for musicians by creating transparency of orchestra salaries and giving musicians throughout the United States and Canada a say in ratifying their contracts. After Barrington's years as a symphonic musician, he transitioned from a full-time performer to a full-time pedagogue and taught for over three decades at the University of Texas at Austin, and several of his students went on to have successful careers of their own. His impressive career and influence …

The purpose of this dissertation is to introduce Le Temps Déformé for solo flute, percussion, and strings, composed by Korean American composer Texu Kim (b. 1980) in 2017. The dissertation includes an analysis of the work and its background, to show that it represents a significant expansion of the concerto repertoire for solo flute and to help performers interpret it. This piece of writing should also contribute to the available sources about the composer Texu Kim, given that it is the first dissertation about him or his work. This piece should be appropriate for flutists who are seeking to perform a new piece with orchestra. Although hundreds of concertos have been written for solo flute and orchestra or string orchestra, Kim uses the unusual instrumentation of strings and percussion (drum and triangle) without woodwinds and brass. In a program note, the composer mentions that he made use of Korean traditional music, Sujecheon, which has similar instrumentation. The note also discusses he transformed and interpreted Korean traditional music to create a new interaction with Western music.

Since the creation of the first all-state vocal jazz ensemble in 1978, similar ensembles have been established in roughly half of the United States. This paper contains historical summaries of the creation of all-state vocal jazz ensembles in nineteen of those states, primarily as recounted via interviews with those ensembles' founders. Each semi-structured interview was conducted over video conference or phone and lasted approximately one hour; resulting interview data was analyzed using qualitative methods. During the creation of each ensemble the respective founders needed to secure the support of a host organization, determine where and when to convene, and decide how to address auditions, sound reinforcement, rhythm sections, and funding. The diversity of solutions to these shared challenges reflects the diverse priorities of each founder as well as the unique conditions in which each all-state vocal jazz ensemble was established. However, several elements were common across these stories, including the influence of existing festivals and all-state ensembles, and tensions within the choral education community regarding the value of the vocal jazz idiom relative to traditional choirs, show choirs, and other vocal ensembles. In a few cases, established all-state vocal jazz ensembles were discontinued; these stories further illustrate the challenges such …

Straw phonation is a semi-occluded vocal tract exercise (SOVTE) that has long been used as a therapeutic device for the voice. The purpose of this study was to compare outcomes following voice lessons that included a straw phonation protocol to those that did not include a protocol. The primary outcome measures were the shortened version of the Singing Voice Handicap Index (SVHI-10), which is a validated health status instrument for singers, and Perceived Vocal Efficiency (PVE). Ten student singers in a large college of music consented into the study and participated in both lesson conditions, serving as their own control. They completed six voice lessons over a six week period with lessons alternating between the straw phonation protocol and no straw phonation protocol conditions. Outcome measures were collected following all six lessons. Repeated measures one-way analysis of variance (RM-ANOVA) revealed no statistically significant effect of the straw phonation protocol on either dependent variable. However, a small effect was found for PVE, indicating that straw phonation led to a perceived improvement in vocal efficiency. There was significant variation in individual responses to straw phonation and participants who had more prior experience with the SOVT experienced less perceptual change across lesson conditions. …

Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857) is widely recognized as a founding father of Russian classical music, but in fact, his music represents a bridge: it establishes a distinctive Slavic sound built on the Italian roots of Glinka's musical inspiration. As a young man, Glinka traveled abroad, which included three years spent in Italy, where he gained extensive exposure to and familiarity with what modern scholarship refers to as the Old Italian School of Singing. This influence makes his songs an ideal introduction to Russian lyric diction while reinforcing the tenets of sound vocalism. This study explores four Glinka melodies: "Doubt ," "To Molly," "The Lark," and "Cavatina." Previously published only in their original keys, the songs are presented here transposed into keys suitable for a young bass and a young baritone singer, with the melody line placed in the bass clef and corresponding IPA transcriptions beneath the original Cyrillic text. Following both an introduction that contextualizes Glinka as a composer enamored of 19th-century Italian opera and a discussion of technical and stylistic aspects regarding the production of sound in that same era, there is a brief examination of Russian lyric diction intended to inspire further study of this unique and rewarding singing …

Modern flute pedagogy tends to focus on repertoire which utilizes or builds upon tonal and Romantic stylistic conventions, largely ignoring works that disregard or reject these conventions until later in student's education. This lack of stylistic diversity in commonly studied works from the first half of the twentieth century can be problematic when students are approaching avant-garde or modernist repertoire for the first time, as they are unfamiliar with the style and technical needs of the pieces. This dissertation provides a style guide and progressive curriculum for the avant-garde repertoire of the early- and mid-twentieth century to help students bridge the gap from commonly-studied early-twentieth century repertoire to Post-War Modernist works. The curriculum and style guide are accompanied by an overview of avant-garde musical styles prominent in Europe and American between the 1890s and 1970s, a discussion of the pedagogical challenges of avant-garde repertoire, and two performance guides for avant-garde pieces included in the curriculum, Diaphonic Suite No. 1 by Ruth Crawford and Variations for Solo Flute by Ursula Mamlok.

Undergraduate cellists from diverse pedagogical backgrounds with various levels of technical proficiency often struggle to adapt to the demanding performance standards of the university environment. Frequently, these challenges are caused by technical concepts that have been incorrectly learned or unaddressed in the cellist's previous educational experience. Designed for university cello professors and undergraduate cello students, this study is a remedial and enhancement technical method for developing efficient performance habits; it presents a synthesis of cello performing ideologies, comprehensive technical analysis, physical conformation solutions, original sequential exercises, practice models, and recommendations for supporting literature. The method provides a structured path to expressive mastery and artistic freedom in performing advanced cello repertoire.