The early music ensemble has evolved from a counterculture to a mainstream musical genre. Because of this early music is having to learn arts management. Once a unique force it now competes with other arts organizations for funding and audience. Unlike other arts groups, early music has little help from within to clarify non-profit management. Through three types of surveys that were e-mailed to 239 early music organizations and 20 early music societies, an assessment of what is currently happening with early music ensembles in terms of growth, funding and over all well-being can be made. The information obtained revealed that most early music ensembles have little or no training in how to run an organization. This inexperience is creating problems and changing the face of early music. Information from the surveys also reveals that even with the economic problems over the last three years, early music is continuing to survive.

The registers of the singing voice, as commonly understood by singers, refer to the different vocal qualities induced by adjustments at the level of the larynx and of the vocal tract. This explains why register unification can be approached either one or a combination of the following procedures: (1) resonance alignment through vowel modification, (2) register alignment through intensity exercises. The wide-spread acceptance of vowel modification has made singers reluctant in exploring other avenues of register development. If registers are laryngeally derived, there should be another way of register unification, which directly addresses the coordination of the laryngeal muscles. In support of this argument, this thesis investigates the teaching practices of a group of twentieth-century American voice teachers, who rely on intensity manipulation as the primary means for enhancing the register adjustments. Intensity exercises such as the messa di voce has long been practiced in historical pedagogy, but it is not until now that voice science confirmed its significance in register coordination.

This thesis is a 'big-picture' look at the course of Western philosophy and its eventual arrival at ideas that look remarkably similar to the revelations of Guatama Buddha 2500 years ago. I look at the roots of how the West has understood itself and understood "being" through the centuries and at the revolutions in thought that took place in the 20th century. I look more closely at 20th century thinkers to demonstrate how their thinking begins to align with the ancient insights of Eastern philosophy, particularly the notions of a prevailing emptiness as "ground" of Being and of the fallacy of the individual subject. I also look at how some 20th century artists have engaged with these new ideas. I see generally two responses to the postmodern (post-subject) position: that of a play of surfaces, such as in the work of Andy Warhol and the philosophy of Jean Baudrillard; and that of an embracing of absence, presented in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and the works of such artists as John Cage, George Brecht, Pauline Oliveros, Bill Wegman, David Hammons and others.