Video recording of interview with John Murphy, UNT professor of jazz studies. Murphy discusses his youth in Baltimore, Maryland, during the 1960s and 1970s including his music education at Baltimore County Public Schools, and the musical influence of the Left Bank Jazz Society; His experience as a UNT student in the jazz studies and music theory programs (1981-1986); playing saxophone in the One O’clock Lab Band and at venues around Denton; His research as an ethnomusicologist studying Cuban and Brazilian music and work as a professor at Western Illinois University (1992-2001) then the University of North Texas (2001-2020) where he served in faculty and administrative roles to further develop the jazz studies program and help preserve the program’s history.

The career of Osvaldo Lacerda (1927-2011) spanned a critical time in the development of Brazilian nationalist music. Though he was an outspoken nationalist composer, he was also influenced by European trends and training. Even within his nationalist compositions, evidence of a shift in style that mirrors the European movements of Modernism and Postmodernism is found in his works. Among his thirty-six chamber works, three are wind quintets, written between 1962 and 1997. Although all three works warrant extended discussion, Variações e Fuga para quinteto de sopros is particularly valuable for studying Lacerda's musical language. It was originally written in 1962. However, Lacerda made significant revisions in 1994, completely rewriting and expanding it. Through comparing the 1962 and 1994 versions of Variações e Fuga and analyzing the significant differences between the two, this document aims show that even with his strong stance as a Brazilian nationalist composer, Lacerda was clearly influenced by the movements of the broader music world. Examples from his other two woodwind quintets, Quinteto de sopro and Suíte pra cinco, written in 1988 and 1997 respectively, help to support the idea that this change in his musical language was not an anomaly, but rather a true evolution of …

"São Paulo: A Graphic Biography, examines the evolution of the region's urban form, tracing through original drawings, archival material, and text, its transformation from a small town to a vast metropolitan region. In doing so, the material documented in this book constructs a diachronic visual account of the city's urban form throughout the twentieth century."

Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979), one of the foremost modern American poets, lived in Brasil during seventeen-odd years beginning in 1951. During this time she composed the poetry collection Questions of Travel, stand-alone poems, and fragments as well as prose pieces and translations. This study builds on the work of critics such as Brett Millier and Lorrie Goldensohn who have covered Bishop’s poetry during her Brasil years. However, most American critics have lacked expertise in both Brasilian culture and the Portuguese language that influenced Bishop’s poetry. Since 2000, in contrast, Brasilian critic Paulo Henriques Britto has explored issues of translating Bishop’s poetry into Portuguese, while Maria Lúcia Martins and Regina Przybycien have examined Bishop’s Brasil poems from a Brasilian perspective. However, American and Brasilian scholars have yet to recognize Bishop’s journey of acculturation as displayed through her poetry chronologically or the importance of her belated reception by Brasilian literary and popular culture. This study argues that Bishop’s Brasil poetry reveals her gradual transformation from a tourist outsider to a cultural insider through her encounters with Brasilian history, culture, language, and politics. It encompasses Bishop’s published and unpublished Brasil poetry, including drafts from the Elizabeth Bishop Papers at Vassar College. On a secondary …