The increasing cultural diversity in the United States has brought not only richness, but also complex challenges, to various segments of American society, particularly with regard to public schools. As the student population continues to diversify while teacher population remains predominately White, female, and middle class, teacher awareness in the classroom might be an integral piece to assist students marginalized by stereotypes in feeling more empowered in the school community. Through qualitative data collection and analysis, and framed by Basil Bernstein’s language code theory, this study explored teachers’ perceptions of how classroom interactions, in light of differences in communication, might impact students of different socio-economic backgrounds from the teacher. The findings of this study indicated that the participants expressed a desire to connect with all of their students, regardless of their background. They also discussed challenges that made relationships difficult, such as feelings of disconnect from their Title I students and their families based on differences in home life and background. This dissonance was often difficult for the participants to reconcile due to pressures and difficulties in their teaching situations, such as the large number of students and the scheduling of classes, curricular pressures, and other district expectations such as …

TransFantasies is an interdisciplinary composition for Baroque flute (flauto traverso), computer music, and dance. A crucial component of the work is an interactive hardware and software environment that provides the opportunity for the players to shape aspects of the work during the performance. This essay discusses the influences that inspired the work and presents an in-depth analysis of notable elements of the composition. Primary issues include compositional models for gesture-based composition, historical performance practices, interactivity, and relationships between music and dance. The final component of the essay details the software component designed to create the composition. It also discusses music technology in current practice and its role in this particular work. At its core, TransFantasies is concerned with those moments where computer-influenced decisions and human behaviors collide.

Don Gillis wrote Symphony No. 5½ (1947) in order to reconcile the American public with modern art music. By synthesizing jazz (as well as other American folk idioms), singable melodies, and humor, and then couching them into symphonic language, Gillis produced a work that lay listeners could process and enjoy. The piece was an immediate success and was played by orchestras across the globe, but it did not retain this popularity and it eventually faded from relevancy. This study focuses on elements that contributed to the initial efficacy and ultimate decline of the work. Due to its pervasive popular influences, Symphony No. 5½ is a crystallized representation of time in which it was written, and it soon became dated. Don Gillis did not harbor the idea that Symphony No. 5½ would grant him great wealth or musical immortality; he had a more pragmatic goal in mind. He used every musical element at his disposal to write a symphonic work that would communicate directly with the American people via a musical language they would understand. He was successful in this regard, but the dialogue ended soon after mid-century.

The purpose of this research was to explore historical perspective of brass music. There is a brief history of brass bands in Britain. Furthermore, the paper examines the differences between two brass band pieces in the repertoire, A Western Fanfare by Eric Ewazen and Brass Symphony by Jan Koetsier. Both of these pieces were compared and contrasted against the author's newly composed work for brass, Two Companion Pieces for Brass Ensemble. The paper covers different techniques commonly used in brass writing and points these techniques out in all three pieces.

Dario Castello's Sonate concertate in stil moderno is a collection of 29 trio sonatas in two volumes, with 10 of them employing the sackbut. These works represent a significant repertoire for the sackbut in an era where specific instrumentation was only starting to become a convention. While these pieces are often studied, performed and recorded in Europe, most American trombonists are not aware of their existence. This study seeks to acquaint the American trombonist with the sonatas of Castello and to provide performance suggestions for those less familiar with this genre. Chapter 1 presents a survey of the current literature on Castello. Chapter 2 provides an historical background for music in Venice in the early 17th century, while Chpater 3 focuses on the composer and his music for sackbut. Chapter 4 investigages the sonata in early 17th century Venice. Chapter 5 provides an insight into early baroque performance practice by discussing principles such as affect, tempo, ornamentation, diminution and articulation. Examples from the ten sonatas are used to illustrate these principles, providing the modern trombonist with a framework in which to study Castello's music. The final chapter discusses the implications of this study on the American trombone curriculum.

Since the 1960s, several gifted Korean composers, including perhaps most notably Young Jo Lee (b. 1943), have been internationally acclaimed for their work. In Western countries, however, there has been a scarcity of academic studies examining the artistry of the music of these Korean composers. Nonetheless, as one of today's most recognized composers in Korea, Young Jo Lee has been invited to numerous international concerts, conferences, and festivals where his works have been played and discussed. A salient feature of his compositions is the fusion of Korean traditional music and the elements of Western compositions, such as in, for one distinctive example, his piano composition, Piano Honza Nori. This musical study describes and analyzes how Lee integrates Korean traditional elements with Western musical ideas in Piano Honza Nori. Results of this study will contribute to the limited literature on the analysis of contemporary piano composition that integrates Korean traditional elements.

The creation of institutions devoted to promoting and supporting modern music in the United States during the 1920s made it possible for American composers to develop an identity distinct from that of European modernists. These institutions were thus a critical part of the process of modernization that began in the United States during the early decades of the twentieth century. There is substantial scholarship on these musical institutions of modern music, such as the International Composers’ Guild and the League of Composers; but little to no work has been done on the progressive musical institutions of the 1910s, such as the Music League of the People’s Music Institute of New York, which was founded by Claire Reis. This thesis addresses the questions of how and why American musical modernism came to be as it was in the 1920s through an examination of the various stages of Reis’s career. The first chapter is an extensive study of primary source material gathered from the League of Composers/ISCM Records collection at the New York Public Library, which relates to Reis’s work with the PML in the 1910s. The second chapter uses the conclusions of the first chapter to shine new light on an …

This document examines the works by Sir Harrison Birtwistle that feature the trumpet as a solo instrument, with extra emphasis placed on The Silk House Tattoo. This document also features a performance guide for the trumpet parts of The Silk House Tattoo. Pedagogical methods for learning the most challenging passages are evaluated, and daily exercises based on the specific demands of each excerpt are offered.

American musical theater and film composer Harold Arlen is largely overshadowed by his contemporaries, such as George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Cole Porter. However, his music serves as a viable alternative for singers of all skill level studying a classical technique. By studying the music of Harold Arlen, singers will utilize a wide range, legato line, negotiations of register, mood shifts, and varying tessituras. The following document considers the importance of Arlen’s music by analyzing eight of his songs from three prominent decades of compositional output. The eight songs examined are grouped by the decade of their composition: the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Each song is evaluated by determining the musical benefits included in each song and also the skill level required of the singer.

Beginning and intermediate piano students typically study the repertoire of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This pedagogical approach leaves them underprepared to approach compositions written since the latter part of the twentieth-century which are significantly different in terms of harmony, rhythm, meter, and compositional procedure. Therefore, a step-by-step method is necessary to prepare a student for the challenges of learning twentieth and twenty-first century piano music. Civil War Variations (1988), by Logan Skelton, is an excellent example of a piece that presents a number of challenges characteristically found in late twentieth-century piano music. The twenty-five variations that comprise the work incorporate a series of twentieth-century musical techniques, namely complex rhythms, extreme dissonance, frequent metric changes, dissonant counterpoint, the inclusion of blues scales and rhythms, and new notations. The purpose of this study is to identify the technical, musical, structural and notational challenges posed by a work such as Logan Skelton’s Civil War Variations; examination of this piece will lead to suggestions regarding repertoire that a teacher may assign to beginning, intermediate, and advanced students in order to prepare them logically and in a step-by-step fashion to cope with and meet the challenges posed by this and other compositions having similar …

Micro-Images for Solo Flute, Genera for Flute/Alto Flute/Bass Flute and Clarinet/Bass Clarinet, and Poème exotique for Flute and Piano by American composer Daniel Kessner (b. 1946) utilize a hybrid compositional approach in which microtones are incorporated with more traditional chromatic writing. Through representative musical examples from each piece, this document highlights the timbral, dynamic and pacing complexities associated with the microtonal fingerings and prompts flutists to forgo idiosyncratic tendencies in favor of contextually based choices. In order to help guide musicians toward effective performances of these three pieces and similar works, a new tone color spectrum and description of relative dynamics are provided along with a discussion of the relationships between tone colors, relative dynamics and temporal pacing. Appendices include transcripts of email interviews with composer Daniel Kessner and Carla Rees, British contemporary flutist, as well as an updated list of Kessner’s flute works.

Benjamin Britten’s life and music have been the subject of study from early in his musical career. Current trends in psychological analysis of Britten’s music tend to focus on common themes, such as homosexuality, pacifism, the sense of the outsider, and the loss of innocence. Similarly, theoretical analyses tend either to provide general categorizations of the technical elements in Britten’s music or to apply a singular preconceived concept as a tool for understanding his compositions. These approaches have yielded significant information but leave aspects of Britten’s personality and music unilluminated. Britten’s Op. 47, Five Flower Songs, are a collection of five part songs for a cappella chorus that are often included within the canon of 20th century choral literature. This paper examines a new perspective on Britten’s music by examining the relationship between Britten’s friendships and their influence on his compositions. Through the examination of these relationships information is revealed that allows for a new method of analysis that is particularly relevant to the Five Flower Songs. The opus was dedicated to two botanists for the occasion of their 25th wedding anniversary. Contained within specific movements are extra-musical references to scientific characteristics of the flowers that are the subjects of …

Original unaccompanied literature currently stands as one of the most understudied bodies of music in the euphonium repertory. This is largely due to a lack of access to reference recordings, live performances, and study/performance guides. Many of the commissioning projects for new euphonium music in the late 20th and early 21st centuries have promoted the composition of large scale works for euphonium and large ensembles, but very few have generated new unaccompanied pieces for euphonium. Many of the most recent commissions for unaccompanied euphonium music have been for competitions such as the Lieksa Brass Festival (Finland) and Leonard Falcone International Festival (USA). These competitions are also where many students get their only exposure to the unaccompanied repertoire. Unfortunately, there is a small number of standard unaccompanied works that are continuously recycled for these competitions and the exposure to new pieces in the repertoire is further diminished for many developing euphoniumists. This study will examine the three works for unaccompanied euphonium by Torstein Aagaard-Nilsen and provide solutions for many common technical challenges and pose suggestions for approaching and preparing this genre of music. Connections are made throughout the study to specific etudes and other unaccompanied solos that can be used as …

James Wintle's, Northwest Miniatures for flute, trumpet and piano is a unique work in the chamber music repertoire. In addition, the use of auxiliary instruments makes this piece a rarity in the flute and trumpet chamber music repertoire. There are a limited number of resources presently available to performers regarding Northwest Miniatures.This dissertation provides a pedagogical performance guide addressing the inherent challenges for the flutist and this instrumentation and serves as a new resource for performers and scholars of this work. It provides a performance analysis of the piece along with pertinent pedagogical information and exercises to assist the flutist. Insight from the composer on how to address these challenges is also included. Because there are a limited number of scholarly resources available on the subject of flute and trumpet chamber music, this dissertation is a significant contribution to this genre of repertoire.

The choral music of Israeli composer Paul Ben-Haim (1897-1984) falls clearly into two distinct compositional periods. Born in Munich, Germany as Paul Frankenburger, the composer received formal, classical training at the Munich Academy of Music. His compositions from this period are an amalgamation of many styles, and they include influences of Bach, Handel, Mahler, Debussy, and Strauss. In 1933, Ben-Haim, along with other trained artists and composers, immigrated to Palestine as part of the Fifth Aliyah. Prior to this wave of immigration, Palestine had not yet received any serious composers, and musically, was still in its infancy. Eager to divorce themselves from the West and identify with their new home in the East, Ben-Haim and his fellow transplant composers sought a new musical language and a unique voice for Israel. Enamored with the exotic sounds of his new environment, Ben-Haim began to absorb elements of Eastern Mediterranean music into his compositions. As a Westerner, he was not familiar with these Eastern traditional folk song melodies, modes, and scales, and he required outside source materials from which to draw. This document examines two choral works, one from each of Paul Ben-Haim’s style periods, Joram (1933) and Kabbalat Shabbat (1968), and identifies …

Claudio Ambrosini’s (b. 1948) unpublished work for unaccompanied flute, A guisa di un arcier presto soriano (1981), although virtually unknown to the musical public and to connoisseurs alike, represents one of the most dazzling and impressive displays of extended techniques in the repertoire of solo flute music. The title, A guisa di un arcier presto soriano, comes from the seventh line of a sonnet by the Italian medieval poet Guido Cavalcanti (ca. 1250-1300) and translates as “just like a fast Syrian archer.” The archer in question is Eros, the Greek god of love. By the composer’s own admission, the form and expression of this piece is closely linked with the form and expression of Cavalcanti’s sonnet. In particular, Ambrosini intimates three elements specifically drawn from the poem: 1) moments of tension and suspense, as Eros silently approaches his target with bow and arrow in hand; 2) moments of love, even to the point of suggesting a love song; and 3) moments that suggest the fast passage of arrows. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore these three elements in Ambrosini’s work and to trace the correlations of the same elements in Cavalcanti’s sonnet. The expression of such concrete poetic …

The American musical team John Kander and Fred Ebb created many celebrated works, yet musicologists have carried out little research on those works. This study examines the role of music in the parodic narration of Kander and Ebb's final collaboration, The Scottsboro Boys. Kander and Ebb use minstrelsy to tell the story of the historic Scottsboro Boys trials with actors portraying the Scottsboro Boys as minstrels; at the same time, they employ a number of devices to subvert minstrelsy stereotypes and thereby comment on racism. Drawing on African American literary theory, sociolinguistics, and Bakhtin's dialogism, this study illuminates how Signifyin(g), a rhetorical tradition used to encode messages in some African American communities, is the primary way the actors playing the Scottsboro Boys subvert through minstrelsy. This study not only contributes to the discussion of Signifyin(g) in African American musicals and theatre as a tool of subversion, but also provides an example of non-African American creators—Kander and Ebb—using Signifyin(g) devices. They use these in the music and the book; in particular, Kander and Ebb do some Signifyin(g) on Stephen Foster's plantation melodies.

Arvo Pärt, an Estonian composer, was born in 1935. Most of the works at the beginning of his career were for piano in the neo-classical style. After that, he turned his interest to serial music and continued creating works with serial techniques throughout the 1960s. After his "self-imposed silence" period (during the years 1968-1976), Pärt emerged with a new musical style, which he called tintinnabuli. Although, this technique was influenced by music from the medieval period, the texture and function of its musical style cannot be described easily in terms of any single musical technique of the past. This study explores the evolution of Arvo Pärt's tintinnabuli technique in its first decade 1976-1985, which is divided into three different types. It provides musical examples from the scores of selected works, Für Alina, Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten, Cantate Domino canticum novum, Missa Sillabica, Stabat Mater and Es sang vor langen Jahren, and their analyses with supporting interpretative sketches. The goal of this thesis is to provide the reader a basis for understanding and recognizing the different types of Pärt's tintinnabuli technique.

Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) stands central to the music history of the Brazilian twentieth century. His music represents a synthesis of the European art influences he absorbed and his quest to find a true Brazilian identity, which was not rooted in the deliberate imitation of Brazilian folk elements, but rather in the natural assimilation of them in his compositional style. His early compositions embody strong post-romantic, impressionistic tendencies, especially in regard to their harmonies and use of tone color, whereas the works from the 1920's and onwards show Villa-Lobos increasingly asserting his unusual and strong voice. Villa-Lobos's large-scale composition for piano, Rudepoêma, was composed between 1921 and 1926, and stands as one of the most significant contributions to the Latin-American piano literature. Despite of its importance in Villa-Lobos's oeuvre, it has largely eluded analytical attention. Discourse on Villa-Lobos is often marked by a somewhat one-dimensional approach that identifies the folk and rhythmic elements as the most important characteristics of his compositional style, and displays a certain reticence with regard to in-depth analysis of other parameters of his works. This study redresses the imbalance in the general approach to analytical assessment of Villa-Lobos's oeuvre by illustrating that pitch organization plays an indispensable …

In the last three decades there has been a surge in original compositions for clarinet and guitar resulting in the repertoire virtually doubling in size. However, documentation and research of original works in published sources remains limited and is quickly becoming outdated. This document reviews the current resources and reviews the newer published materials. Early chamber music works for guitar and clarinet typically required the guitar to supply harmonic support to the clarinet's upper voice, which carried the themes. An examination of the earliest works, which date from the early nineteenth century, suggests, in other words, that the two parts were not treated equally, in contrast to modern-day chamber music, in which melodic elements are proportionally balanced between the two instruments. A critical survey and comparison of four significant works from the repertoire reveals a development toward motivic balance, a progression towards melodic equality that continued in subsequent compositions. The four works surveyed are: Heinrich Neumann's Serenata Svizzera Op.29, Ferdinand Rebay's Sonata for Clarinet and Guitar No.2 in A minor, Libby Larsen's Blue Third Piece, and Gernot Wolfgang's Four Miniatures. An extensive compilation of over 300 original published and unpublished works for clarinet and guitar, bass clarinet and guitar, and …

Johann Gottfried Eckard was a self-trained composer and keyboardist studying with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Versuch while he lived in Augsburg. Eckard traveled to Paris with the keyboard instrument builder, Johann Andreas Stein, in 1758 and settled in France for the rest of his life. Eckard only composed eight keyboard sonatas and a set of variations on the Menuet d’Exaudet. He published his works during the transitional period from harpsichord to fortepiano. The eight keyboard sonatas incorporated variations of musical styles which included Italian sonata, galant, and empfindsamer stil. His keyboard sonatas influenced his contemporaries including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Schobert. Eckard was one of the early fortepiano composers in France and tried to promote the new instrument, but wrote in the Foreword of six sonatas (op.1), that they were suitable for the harpsichord, the clavichord, and the fortepiano. The six sonatas of op.1 were published in 1763, two years after fortepiano was advertised for sale in the local newspaper. In 1768, the fortepiano was used in a public concert for the first time in Paris. In the aspect of performance practice, both harpsichord and fortepiano used juxtapose during the transitional period, even though the music would sound better …

Legendary violist and pedagogue Karen Tuttle developed a new approach to playing the viola known as Coordination. Coordination consists of a deep emotional connection to music, as well as highly specific motions of the body. This document details the execution of the physical motions of Coordination, through written descriptions and multimedia examples. A detailed discussion of the application of the motions is presented, using notated examples from Ernest Bloch’s Suite Hébraïque.

Webern scholarship has not comprehensively examined op. 25, drei lieder. If the selection of text for op. 25 is viewed as one work in three movements they create a ternary form (A-B-A1). To show how this form is developed in the music the author creates a new analytical system based on Schoenberg's Grundgestalt which is defined by three basic ideas: symmetry, liquidation, and variation. The relationship between the voice and accompaniment and Webern's deliberate manipulation of the text is used to reveal the use of a program which is then tied to the numerical symbolism of 2 and 3.

The purpose of this study was to provide a description of teacher perceptions concerning behavioral and physiological vocal issues among current gender groupings in sixth-grade choir classrooms through the collection of survey research data. Participants selected for this study consisted of registered Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area choral directors of the Texas Music Educators Association. Results of the study indicated that more girls were enrolled in sixth-grade choir than boys and that mixed choirs were more common than gender-specific choirs in sixth grade. Results also indicated that teachers perceived evidence of early voice change among both sixth grade boys and girls, and that there was a difference in behavior as students showed signs of puberty.