This dissertation presents evidence for the influence which tenor Enrico Caruso had on the Italian Vocal Tradition. This impact was clearly boosted by the revolution realized in the fledgling recording industry, and the recordable disc. In the years of 1902-1920 gramophones became commonplace, and collecting recordings became an interest for many. This new technology required specialized skills, and was especially suited to certain qualities of voice. Caruso enjoyed immense success in this medium, in recording over 250 records. Italian vocal style at the turn of the century was changing, and Caruso employed a new "modern" style in his singing. His interpretive decisions, vocal method, and repertoire which he championed had an impact on the vocal tradition of future generations. Comparison of his recordings with tenors Fernando de Lucia, Giuseppe Anselmi, and Alessandro Bonci shows a marked contrast in styles of "the old school" and Caruso's "more straightforward" approach. A collection of historical documents for those who succeeded him include many biographies, reviews, and quotes to demonstrate the extent of his influence. Recordings also show a movement toward "the Caruso Sound." Jussi Bjoerling, Franco Corelli, Richard Tucker, Mario Lanza, and Luciano Pavarotti were all influenced by the great Caruso. Almost 100 …

This paper uses the concept of mimesis to clarify the debate concerning the representation of reality in music. Specifically, this study defines the audio reality effect and the three main practices of realism as a way of understanding mimetic practices in multiple artistic media, in particular regarding the multimedia works of the "Landscape series." After addressing the historical debates concerning mimesis, this study develops a framework for the understanding of mimesis in sound by addressing the writings of Weiss, Baudrillard, Barthes, Deleuze, and Prendergast and by examining mimetic practices in 19th-century European painting and multimedia performance works. The audio reality effect is proposed as a meaningful translation of Roland Barthes' literary reality effect to the sonic realm. The main trends of realist practice are applied to electroacoustic music and soundscape composition using the works and writings of Emmerson, Truax, Wishart, Risset, Riddell, Smalley, Murray Schafer, Fischman, Young, and Field. Lastly, this study mimetically analyzes "2 seconds / b minor / wave" by Michael Pisaro and Taku Sugimoto and the works of the "Landscape series" in order to demonstrate the relevance of mimesis for understanding current musical practice.

In music education, aesthetic education and praxial music education serve as two major, guiding philosophical frameworks, yet supporters of each often conflict with one another. Furthermore, both are slightly problematic with respect to the specific context of the public school. Each framework is primarily music-based, however, music education has existed in the wider context of general education since the 1830s. Given the recent core-status designation for music education, as part of all fine arts, in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a framework from general education that supported music education could offer benefits for the domain. However, the wider context of general education is messy as well. Two groups occupy most of the space there, and remain locked in a fundamental disagreement over the purpose of a formal education. The progressive educators, historically framed by Dewey and Thorndike, contend that education functions as societal improvement. In contrast, the essentialists contend that education functions as cultural transmission. Therefore, a more specific need for music education involves selecting a framework from general education that resolves this conflict. The writings of William Chandler Bagley indicate that he balanced both considerations of a formal education while also advancing his notion of …

The purpose of this study is to explore neoclassical elements present in Krenek’s George Washington Variations. By identifying the stylistic features associated with the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, the study will examine Krenek’s application of his neoclassical tendencies. Key neoclassical elements include musical form and structure, key relationships, melody and harmony, and chromaticism. Since at this time there is little research on Krenek’s piano works, and none on the George Washington Variations, the result of this examination provides pianists and instructors with historically constructive information about Krenek’s musical style, as well as a deeper understanding of Krenek’s Neoclassicism in his George Washington Variations.

The wild populations of the Scarlet Macaw subspecies native to southern Mexico and Central America, A. m. cyanoptera, have been drastically reduced over the last half century and are now a major concern to local governments and conservation groups. Programs to rebuild these local populations using captive bred specimens must be careful to reintroduce the native A. m. cyanoptera, as opposed to the South American nominate subspecies (A. m. macao) or hybrids of the two subspecies. Molecular markers for comparative genomic analyses are needed for definitive differentiation. Here I describe the isolation and sequence analysis of multiple loci from 7 pedigreed A. m. macao and 14 pedigreed A. m. cyanoptera specimens. The loci analyzed include the 18S rDNA genes, the complete mitogenome as well as intronic regions of selected autosomally-encoded genes. Although the multicopy18S gene sequences exhibited 10% polymorphism within all A. macao genomes, no differences were observed between any of the 21 birds whose genomes were studied. In contrast, numerous polymorphic sites were observed throughout the 16,993 bp mitochondrial genomes of both subspecies. Although much of the polymorphism was observed in the genomes of both subspecies, subspecies-specific alleles were observed at a number of mitochondrial loci, including 12S, 16S, …

Philip Glass's minimalist opera The Voyage commemorates the 500th Anniversary of Christopher Columbus's discovery of America. In the opera, Philip Glass, like other composers, expresses singers' and non-singers' words and activities by means of melodies, rhythms, chords, textures, timbres, and dynamics. In addition to these traditional musical expressions, successions of reiterating materials (RMs, two or more iterations of materials) and non reiterating materials (NRMs) become new musical expressions. However, dividing materials into theses two categories only distinguishes NRMs from RMs without exploring relations among them in successions. For instance, a listener cannot perceive the functional relations between a partial iteration of the RM and the NRM following the partial RM because both the partial RM and the NRM are NRMs. As a result, a listener hears a succession of NRM followed by another NRM. When an analyst relabels the partial RM as partial loop, and the NRM following the partial RM as loop breaker, a listener hears the NRM as a loop breaker causing a partial loop. The musical functions of loops and loop breakers concern a listener's expectations of the creation, sustaining, departure, and return to the norm in successions of loops and loop breakers. When a listener associates …

This dissertation considers the use of orchestra bells as a solo instrument. I use three examples taken from chamber literature (Drumming by Steve Reich, Why Patterns? by Morton Feldman, and Ave by Franco Donatoni) to demonstrate uses of the instrument in an ensemble setting. I use six solo, unaccompanied orchestra bell pieces (Twelve Bell Canons by Robert Morris, Katarynka by Marta Ptaszyńska, Over by Stuart Saunders Smith, A Little Suite and an Encore Tango by Will Ogdon, Breaks Through by Lafayette Gilchrist, and Bells for New Orleans by Roscoe Mitchell) to illustrate the instrument’s expressive, communicative ability. In the discussion of each piece, I include brief background information, the composer’s musical language in the piece and performance considerations. I interviewed composers of these solo works to complete the research for this document to discuss their musical language and their thoughts on writing for solo orchestra bells.

For woodwind and brass performers, intraoral pressure is the measure of force exerted on the surface area of the oral cavity by the air transmitted from the lungs. This pressure is the combined effect of the volume of air forced into the oral cavity by the breathing apparatus and the resistance of the embouchure, reed opening, and instrument’s back pressure. Recent research by Michael Adduci shows that intraoral pressures during oboe performance can exceed capabilities for corresponding increases in sound output, suggesting a potentially hazardous situation for the development of soft tissue disorders in the throat and velopharyngeal insufficiencies. However, considering that oboe back pressure is perhaps the highest among the woodwind instruments, this problem may or may not occur in other woodwinds. There has been no research of this type for the other woodwind instruments. My study was completed to expand the current research by comparing intraoral pressure (IOP) and sound pressure when performing with a characteristic tone on oboe, clarinet, flute, bassoon, and saxophone. The expected results should show that, as sound pressure levels increase, intraoral pressure will also increase. The subjects, undergraduate and graduate music majors at the University of North Texas, performed a series of musical …

There are certain recordings by important artists such as Lionel Hampton, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Pedro Iturralde, Chick Corea, and Paco de Lucía, among others, that have been associated with the label flamenco jazz. This label is entering jazz discourse, and it needs to be better understood in order to clarify its history, its identity, and its impact on recent developments in flamenco that are labeled nuevo flamenco. There is a lack of agreement in the existent literature on flamenco jazz on the evaluation of these recordings and these artists' achievements and contributions to this field. These writings encompass authors from different backgrounds: journalists, critics, and musicologists, who have approached their analysis of the recordings from different perspectives. The differences in professional backgrounds, approaches, and purpose of the writings of these authors has resulted in controversy about this label. Therefore, the flamenco jazz scholarly conversation needs more objective writings from an analytical point of view. This historiographical study presents a more comprehensive evaluation of flamenco jazz by discussing selected recordings using analytical tools from jazz studies. These analytical arguments clarify the aesthetics of flamenco jazz and the artistic processes that these artists went through when combining musical elements from flamenco …

Paul Robert Fauchet's Symphonie pour Musique d'Harmonie, known in the United States as Symphony in B-flat, is a four-movement composition spanning nearly thirty minutes in length and written in the style of the late romantic composers. Despite its place as one of the first symphonies for wind band, a performance of the piece that represents the composer's 1926 orchestration is difficult due to the inclusion of instruments that are no longer in common practice, including bugles, alto horns, and saxhorns. Later American editions of the work by James Robert Gillette (1933) and Frank Campbell-Watson (1948/1949) replaced these instruments, but also took several other liberties with orchestration and voicing. The primary purpose of this study was the creation of a performance edition of the Symphony for modern wind band that is accessible to a larger audience of performers and listeners. The method involved in creating the modern edition eliminates errors of extant editions and clarifies a number of the discrepancies surrounding the symphony's multiple publications. This edition attempts to retain the composer's voicing and orchestration choices. To accomplish this, the present project considered where modern instrumentation differed from the original sources and attempted to balance timbral similarities between those instruments, while …

Oran Milo Roberts was at the center of every important event in Texas between 1857 and 1883. He served on the state supreme court on three separate occasions, twice as chief justice. As president of the 1861 Secession Convention he was instrumental in leading Texas out of the Union. He then raised and commanded an infantry regiment in the Confederate Army. After the Civil War, Roberts was a delegate to the 1866 Constitutional Convention and was elected by the state legislature to the United States Senate, though Republicans in Congress refused to seat him. He served two terms as governor from 1879 to 1883. Despite being a major figure in Texas history, there are no published biographies of Roberts. This dissertation seeks to examine Roberts's place in Texas history and analyze the factors that drove him to seek power. It will also explore the major events in which he participated and determine his historical legacy to the state.

The purpose of this research is to document how Claude Debussy’s compositional style was used in Louis Vierne’s organ music in the early twentieth century. In addition, this research seeks standard nineteenth-century practices in Vierne’s music. Vierne lived at the same time as Debussy, who largely influenced his music. Nevertheless, his practices were varied on the basis of Vierne’s own musical ideas and development, which were influenced by established nineteenth-century practices. This research focuses on the music of Louis Vierne’s Pièces de fantaisie, Opp. 51, 53, 54, and 55 (1926-1927). In order to examine Debussy’s practices and standard nineteenth-century practices, this project will concentrate on a stylistic analysis that demonstrates innovations in melody, harmony, and mode compared to the existing musical styles.

Franz Schreker (1878-1934) was a Jewish-Austrian composer of great success during the first decades of the twentieth century. Schreker’s reputation diminished after 1933 when Hitler came to power and, in 1938, his compositions were labeled Entartete Musik (“degenerate music”) by the Nazis in a public display in Düsseldorf. The Third Reich and post-war Germany saw Schreker as a decadent outcast, misunderstanding his unique style that combined elements of romanticism, expressionism, impressionism, symbolism, and atonality. This study of Schreker’s Lieder will pursue two goals. First, it will analyze the Mutterlieder (before 1898), the Fünf Gesänge (1909), and the first piece from Vom ewigen Leben (1923) stylistically. Schreker composed nearly four dozen Lieder, incorporating a wide range of styles and ideas. By studying and performing these songs written at various points in his career (including early songs, songs written after he met Schoenberg, and his last songs during the height of his fame), I hope to develop a clearer understanding of how Schreker synthesized the many cultural forces and artistic movements that seem to have influenced his compositional style. Second, this study will consider the sociopolitical circumstances that fueled the disintegration of his reputation. This disintegration occurred not just during the Third …

Bulgaria, though a fairly small Eastern European country, boasts an ancient history of folk traditions and music; however, very few notated works exist due to the people's primitive lifestyle throughout Bulgaria's history. Singing and dancing as well as creating instruments from wood and animal skin were considered an integral part of everyday life, equal to cooking, sewing, herding, or farming; in fact, one almost always accompanied the other. Thus, more than 1500 years of folklore was orally passed on and preserved generation after generation; however, nothing was notated until only very recently when Bulgarians realized the cultural and national value of their history. After the liberation from Ottoman Rule (1453-1877) a nationalist movement spread throughout the Balkan countries, which resulted in the emergence of Bulgarian composers. Music and songs from the local folk traditions evolved, developed, and - with notation - became the foundation for the vocal and instrumental music of the so-called first generation of Bulgarian composers. Around the turn of the century, many Bulgarian artists and musicians traveled to Western Europe (mostly Austria, Germany, and Russia) and upon their return, their artistic output created an original mixture of Bulgarian national folk with influences from Western classical music. After …

This study examines the evolution of the improvisational vocabulary utilized by bassist Marc Johnson over the course of his career. Through interviews and musical analysis the study contextualizes Johnson’s musical influences, considers how they shaped his development, and examines his role in the legacy of the stylistic lineage established by Scott LaFaro with the Bill Evans Trio. A survey of literature concerning Johnson, Scott LaFaro and Eddie Gomez is included, as well as a discussion of the impact of apprenticeship on Johnson’s career. The study illuminates aspects of Johnson’s current vocabulary and how he has synthesized influences to create a distinctive vocabulary, not derivative of Scott LaFaro or Eddie Gomez, but incorporating elements of their style in the composition of his own voice.

Between 1960 and 1968 the United States conducted intensive psychological operations (PSYOP) in Vietnam. To date, no comprehensive study of the psychological war there has been conducted. This dissertation fills that void, describing the development of American PSYOP forces and their employment in Vietnam. By looking at the complex interplay of American, North Vietnamese, National Liberation Front (NLF) and South Vietnamese propaganda programs, a deeper understanding of these activities and the larger war emerges. The time period covered is important because it comprises the initial introduction of American PSYOP advisory forces and the transition to active participation in the war. It also allows enough time to determine the long-term effects of both the North Vietnamese/NLF and American/South Vietnamese programs. Ending with the 1968 Tet Offensive is fitting because it marks both a major change in the war and the establishment of the 4th Psychological Operations Group to manage the American PSYOP effort. This dissertation challenges the argument that the Northern/Viet Cong program was much more effective that the opposing one. Contrary to common perceptions, the North Vietnamese propaganda increasingly fell on deaf ears in the south by 1968. This study also provides support for understanding the Tet Offensive as a …

"With the Earth in Mind" responds to some of the most cutting-edge research in the field of ecocriticism, which centers on ecological loss and the grief that ensues. Ecocritics argue that ecological objects of loss abound--for instance, species are disappearing and landscapes are becoming increasingly compromised--and yet, such loss is often deemed "ungrievable." While humans regularly grieve human losses, we understand very little about how to genuinely grieve the loss of nonhuman being, natural environments, and ecological processes. My dissertation calls attention to our society's tendency to participate in superficial nature-nostalgia, rather than active and engaged environmental mourning, and ultimately activism. Herein, I investigate how an array of postwar and contemporary American novels represent a complex relationship between environmental degradation and mental illness. Literature, I suggest, is crucial to investigations of this problem because it can reveal the human consequences of ecological loss in a way that is unavailable to political, philosophical, scientific, and even psychological discourse.

Strong coherence in quasi-resonant laser driven system interferes with effective relaxations, resulting in behaviors like, coherent population trapping and Electromagnetically induced transparency. The Raman system can optimize this utilizing excited coherence in the lambda system when exposed to counter- intuitive pump-stokes pulses. The phenomenon can result in complete population transfer between vibrational levels called Stimulated Raman adiabatic passage(STIRAP). STIRAP and CHIRAP have been studied with Gaussian and chirped pulses. The optical propagation effects in dense medium for these phenomenon is studied to calculate the limitations and induced coherences. Further, the effect of rotational levels has been investigated. The molecular vibrational coherence strongly depends on the effect of rotational levels. The change in coherence interaction for ro-vibrational levels are reported and explained. We have considered the effects on the phase of radiation related to rotational mechanical motion of quantum system by taking advantages in ultra strong dispersion medium provided by quantum coherence in lambda system. The enhanced Fizeau effect on a single atom is observed.

The internationalization research domain has predominantly focused on country level antecedents of firm level decisions, with particular emphasis on why certain countries are selected over others for foreign direct investment (FDI). This approach may oversimplify what actually occurs from both practical and research perspectives. Recently, MNE strategic orientation and conduct, as an outflow of a region-based localization perspective (i.e.,semiglobalization), has gained increased scholarly attention. The tradition of considering country level institutional environments may be more robustly informed by extending a paradigm which considers region-based institutions, in addition to country. Thus, in this study I examine institutional effects, as underpinned by institutional theory, on one segment of FDI decision making, cross-border acquisitions behavior, in an understudied context, Latin American MNEs (i.e., Multilatinas). Linear and mixed regression are used to test hypotheses, by examining a sample of all Multilatina CBAs exacted over a five year period (2007-2011)in targeting host country firms within eight geographic regions. Multilevel study results provide overarching support for hypotheses, that a Multilatina's internationalization into a country and region through cross-border acquisition equity participation is influenced by both country and region institutional environments. Contributions are made to the semiglobalization, cross-border acquisitions, institutions, and Multilatina literature streams through development of …