Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Native American Choral Music: Strategies For Celebrating And Incorporating Music Of Indigenous People, Mary Ruth Young

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

*Language usage is fluid and evolving, representing past and present people groups. During my discussions with my Indigenous composer colleagues, I've found that they hold varying preferences regarding how they wish to be addressed and the terminology they prefer. Because of this, I use the terms Native, Native American, First Nations, Indigenous, American Indian, and First Peoples interchangeably.*

This document will discuss the historical exclusion of Native American music in the Western art forms, specifically the choral tradition, and provide solutions to incorporate it in modern choral performances. Considering first the wars, disease, displacement, colonization, and missionization, it is no …

Music Of The Divine: Interweaving Threads Connecting Contemporary Chant-Based Piano Repertoire, Jeremy D. Duck

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

The purpose of this document is to prove chant remains an important source of inspiration among living composers, and, despite the number of piano works already incorporating chant, composers today are still finding unique ways to include chant in their music. To achieve this objective, representative works have been selected for research and analysis for four of the major chant traditions. Connor Chee’s The Navajo Piano, Victoria Bond’s Illuminations on Byzantine Chant, and Hayes Biggs’ E.M. am Flügel: Poem-Étude for Piano Solo, though the chants from which they are inspired are diverse in concept and style, they …

Music Of The Divine: Interweaving Threads Connecting Contemporary Chant-Based Piano Repertoire, Jeremy Dewayne Duck

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

The purpose of this document is to prove chant remains an important source of inspiration among living composers, and, despite the number of piano works already incorporating chant, composers today are still finding unique ways to include chant in their music. To achieve this objective, representative works have been selected for research and analysis for four of the major chant traditions. Connor Chee’s The Navajo Piano, Victoria Bond’s Illuminations on Byzantine Chant, and Hayes Biggs’ E.M. am Flügel: Poem-Étude for Piano Solo, though the chants from which they are inspired are diverse in concept and style, they share many similarities, …

Make War To Make Peace: Themes Of War In Trombone Solo Literature, Ian Rutherford

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

The trombone has a relatively small amount of solo literature, especially for how long it has existed. Many professors only teach and perform an even smaller number of those pieces. Some works are compelling and captivating but rarely performed. The purpose of this document is to explore two lesser-known works that have an exciting connection; they are both works about war. I Was Like Wow for Tenor Trombone and Boombox by Jacob Ter Veldhuis (JacobTV) and Encounters IV for Tenor Trombone and Multi-Percussion by William Kraft are two original works for trombone that explore themes of war.

The pieces were …

New Paradigms In Band Performance: An Analysis Of Three Prototypes, Scott Walker-Parker

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

This document seeks to propose new paradigms in band performance through inter-, multi-, and transdisciplinarity. Initial inspirations were drawn from performance innovations shaped by the new music theater which became popular in the 20^th century. Key concepts which were used throughout the creative, planning, logistic, rehearsal, and performance processes are analyzed in three recitals through prototypes of new paradigms in band performance. These concepts include accessibility and community, nonverbal/multimodal performance and instruction versus time, and nonverbal/multimodal communication.

The document has been organized in a manner which highlights successes and breakdowns of each process so future refinement can be made. …

Blurred Lines: An Analysis Of Karel Husa's Music For Prague, 1968 Using Fuzzy Serialism, Sydney Wilson

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

The wind band work Music for Prague, 1968 by Karel Husa is a well-respected work that has withstood the test of time. Husa, a native of then-Czechoslovakia, composed the piece in less than a year from the United States. The piece serves as a method of expressing his feelings regarding the invasion of his homeland where his family was still residing. Husa accomplished this expression through the use of a nationalistic theme, the Hussite War Song, and his own integration of twelve-tone serialism.

This study looks at pre-existing literature surrounding Husa’s use of serialism, including an analysis by Husa himself. …

Franz Schubert, Overture In The Italian Style D. 591, Transcribed For Band By Randall Snyder, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

In 1817, in response to the Italian craze sweeping Vienna, the 20yr Schubert wrote two Overtures “in the Italian Style”. In particular, the second of these, D.591, captures the spirit of Rossini. It begins with a gently portentous slow introduction. After a brief pause, the tempo increases with a sprightly melody, its dotted rhythms echoing Rossini. Another theme is introduced before the eruption of one of those famous slow-building, repetitive “Rossini crescendos.” A repeat of this music leads tp a faster tempo and the Overture’s exciting conclusion.

duration: c. 7 minutes

Instrumentation: Flute 1, Flute 2, Oboe, Bassoon, Clarinet in …

Inclusive Music Teacher Education: Valuing Breadth And Diversity Through Authentic Immersive Experiences, Rhonda J. Fuelberth, Robert H. Woody

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

In this report of self-study research, we share the insights we have gained working together at our institution to make undergraduate music teacher education more inclusive of how people naturally do music, focusing on three program features. First, we explain how our program affirms composition as a primary form of musicianship, similar to the status commonly given to performance. Second, we describe a vernacular music making experience in which our music education students learn to play “rock band” instruments, engage in songwriting, and explore being expressive in the styles of music personally favored by themselves and their future students. Third, …

Hidden Treasures From The Classical Era: Three Idiomatic And Accessible Settings Of The Mass, Paul Von Kampen

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

How fortunate we are to live in an age where the world of choral literature seemingly continues to expand at an exponential rate. Since the advent of the Internet, it has never been easier to deliver compositions, performances, and research to a global audience. Opportunities to program new, undiscovered, or underperformed pieces are so vast that conductors could easily feel the effects of information overload. In his 2004 book The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, Barry Schwartz details the dilemma of having an abundance of choice in situations that originally had very few. Attempting to buy jeans, the …

Ruth Duvall Crawford’S Wonderful Career In Music And Evangelism, Dan D. Crawford

Zea E-Books Collection

This book is a study of the career and ministry of Ruth Duvall Crawford (1916–1986), the wife of prominent evangelist Percy Crawford (1902–1960). As pianist for Percy’s evangelistic team and director of music for his various evangelistic enterprises, Ruth put together an ensemble of 40–50 musicians, and produced hundreds of high-quality music programs, geared to Percy’s nationwide radio and television audiences. These programs set a new standard of performance in evangelical circles in the Northeast and Central United States in the 1930s and 40s. In the process of building this musical program, Ruth developed a format and an original style …

Native American Boarding School Bands And Their Bandmasters. Project File 4: Biographical Sketches Of Important Bandmasters, Peter M. Lefferts

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

This is the fourth of five on-line text files in which I assemble my research notes about boys’ bands and their bandmasters at the US government’s Native American off-reservation inter-tribal boarding schools. It is material that covers a span of about fifty years from the 1880s to the 1930s. I principally have put into some kind of order a mass of data that draws upon online digital newspapers and genealogy databases. What follows here is not a finished, polished document. Everything on offer is still work in progress, inconsistent in formatting and with missing data and the occasional typographical error. …

Native American Boarding School Bands And Their Bandmasters. Project File 2: Bands At The Omaha Indian Congresses, 1898 & 1899, Peter M. Lefferts

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

This is the second of five on-line text files in which I assemble my research notes about boys’ bands and their bandmasters at the US government’s Native American off-reservation inter-tribal boarding schools. In general, it is material that covers a span of about fifty years from the 1880s to the 1930s, though the present document concentrates on the Omaha expositions of 1898 and 1899. I principally have put into some kind of order a mass of data that draws upon online digital newspapers and genealogy databases. What follows here is not a finished, polished document. Everything on offer is still …

Native American Boarding School Bands And Their Bandmasters. Project File 5: Native Americans On The Chautauqua Circuits: The Role Of Thurlow Lieurance And Lincoln’S University School Of Music, Peter M. Lefferts

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

This is the fifth of five on-line text files in which I assemble my research notes about boys’ bands and their bandmasters at the US government’s Native American off-reservation inter-tribal boarding schools. The present document began as an off-shoot from that project into local history concerning the School of Music associated with the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, NE around 1915-1925 and its role in preparing Native American young adults to appear on Circuit Chautauqua programs. They were often graduates of boarding school band programs, and the Haskell school band, in particular, made major Circuit Chautauqua tours with Native American …

Native American Boarding School Bands And Their Bandmasters: Project File 1: General Topics, Peter M. Lefferts

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

To establish a context for the Native American boarding school bands, we start with an important generalization. In the great Victorian era of bands, most were amateur, adult, white, male, community- or workplace-based recreational ensembles. With few exceptions, bands in the 19th century were not ensembles of children or women or family members, and they did not have a home in public primary or secondary schools. With roots in the military band tradition, civilian bands were mostly social organizations for adult males---grown men---"discoursing sweet music" as a kind of fraternal club with voluntary civic functions. Adult amateur men’s bands peppered …

Native American Boarding School Bands And Their Bandmasters. Project File 3: The Principal Schools And Their Bands, Peter M. Lefferts

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

This document sketches the histories of the boys’ bands and their bandmasters at eight of the most prominent of the US Government’s off-reservation inter-tribal Native American boarding schools. It is material that covers a span of about fifty years from the 1880s to the 1930s. I principally have put into some kind of order a mass of data that draws upon online digital newspapers and genealogy databases. What follows here is not a finished, polished document. Everything on offer is still work in progress, complete with missing data and the occasional typographical error. The author welcomes queries, additions, and corrections, …

Perceptual And Conceptual Structures In Thea Musgrave's Green, Isabel Bohrer

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

Green, by Thea Musgrave, traces the interaction between two contrasting musical ideas. The opening of the piece presents the first idea: a lyrical section that highlights the importance of the pitch class E within the idea. This is interrupted by the second, discordant, idea which initially presents as a low F tremolo. Throughout the first half of the work, these ideas interact. The second half of the work further explores the melodies developed from the more discordant ideas, completely omitting the lyrical theme.

Within this piece there is a framework based upon the use of octatonic collections and modified …

Rediscovering Argentine Repertoire Written In The 1930s: A Performative Study Of Concert Piano Works By Lita Spena And Celia Torrá, Florencia Zuloaga

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

A survey of the piano repertoire written during the decade of 1930 in Argentina reveals the rising number of several works written by women composers. For the first time, the years that followed the inauguration of the National Conservatory of Music and Theater in 1924 witnessed a professionalization of women in the field of music composition, and two figures made great strides in this regard. Celia Torrá and Lita Spena stood out among the first female composition students at the National Conservatory and some of the first to succeed as professional composers. Furthermore, they were among the first women to …

The Romantic Style In The Piano Works Of Manuel M. Ponce, Oscar Vazquez Medrano

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

Manuel M. Ponce is one of the most recognized Mexican composers of the twentieth century. He is known for his contributions to the guitar and piano literature, but more importantly, for his efforts to introduce musical nationalism in a world where Romantic opera and salon music dominated Mexico’s music scene.

This document has an introduction, six chapters, a conclusion, a bibliography, and three appendixes. The introduction includes pertinent background on Ponce’s music and the types of research dedicated to him, as well as the stylistic division of his music by Ponce scholars.

Chapter one explains the historical context in Mexico …

A Comparison Of Nebraska Urban, Rural, And Reservation Schools' Readiness To Achieve Nebraska State Music Standards, Amber E. Knight

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

Every person has a unique perspective through which the concept of music education is filtered, and for good reason: music classrooms and programs across the United States are very different. Programs are dissimilar in everything from tangible items, such as facilities and available teaching materials, to foundational frameworks, including curriculum and program philosophy. Local geographical and cultural contexts contribute to the dissimilarity of music programs across the United States, and even those within the same region or state. The purpose of this study was to examine the commonalities and differences in school climate and access to resources among urban, rural, …

Music Basics, Rachael Huxley, Laurel Carder

Honors Expanded Learning Clubs

For students to learn elements of music and how to apply them in their everyday lives.

Teaching Music Theory Through Covid-19, Donna Deloy

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

This thesis surveyed music theory instructors throughout the United States. Throughout the interviews, instructors shared their insights during COVID-19 as a college instructor. This thesis seeks to describe and inform college instructors of the changes made to the undergraduate curriculum and classroom during the COVID-19 pandemic; as a result, instructors found and created new ways to engage students in a classroom through an online format. While creating an online music theory course is challenging, instructors share their experiences navigating this temporary shift beginning in March 2020. A suggestion of implementing more technology into the music theory core could create a …

The Bleached Bones Of A Story, Coral Douglas

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

All ideas stored in our heads are simplistic in nature, or relational to others, which allows for the production of more complex ideas. As is such, small memories supplement beautifully full, yet inherently relational concepts. Small scale ideas are useful to performers (and to audiences), as it is difficult to handle brain capacity overload; it's impossible to multi-task, let alone keep multiple ideas going at once to their fullest, especially when presented with dense new materials. In composing with mental participation for audience members and performers in mind, I propose that composers should create clear formal devices, intend their materials …

Esther's Rise, John David Cope

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

Two of the most important parts of my life are my faith and my love of writing music. To conclude my time in Nebraska, I wanted to combine these two facets of my life to create something inspiring and beautiful. To that end, I composed “Esther’s Rise,” a six-movement work that programmatically retells the book of Esther from the Old Testament. To further enhance the story, I commissioned Vera Eva, an international freelance artist, to create a collection of eighteen digital illustrations that help audiences imagine the story unfold. Furthermore, I also paraphrased the biblical text to accompany the illustrations …

The Muted Woman: A Lovey-Dovey Themed Recital, From A Man's Point Of View, Raven Williams

Honors Theses

This senior thesis consists of a vocal recital, accompanying program notes, and research regarding the struggles of women composers as music evolved through its Ancient, Baroque, Classic, Romantic and Contemporary periods. The recital includes a compilation of love songs by French, Italian, English, and German composers, in particular Gabriel Fauré, the often-forgotten Stefano Donaudy, Samuel Barber, Roger Quilter, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Joseph Haydn. This paper incorporates biographical information, analysis, performance history and cultural insights into the overshadowed women composers that prospered around the same time period as the men of the former. Specifically, Nadia Boulanger, Nannerl Mozart, Alice Mary …

Sanjo Nova, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

Sanjo Nova is a reimagining of the traditional Korean solo instrumental genre that developed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It expands the number of performers to a trio, and, along with the Changgo drum, uses the violin and cello, suggesting the Haeguem and Komungo. The work follows the general slow to fast form, using aspects of traditional Changdans (rhythmic patterns). Unlike the traditional Sanjo however, this piece is an arch form, with decreasing energy in the second half, arriving at the slow Chungmori tempo at the end. Janggu should play in the folk style, using a mallet …

Abstract Visions, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

American Visions is a musical portrait of six mid-century American Abstract Expressionist painters.

Arshile Gorky (1904-1948) uses twisted, elegant lines in 'biomorphic' forms in his abstract paintings along with an overlay of colors, synthesizing Surrealism with abstraction. Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) is identified with the use of fluid shapes, abstract masses, and lyrical gestures. She used formats on which she painted, generally, simplified abstract compositions.staining into raw canvas Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) painted in a style that came to be referred to as "action painting” .The female figure is an important umage.. Mark Rothko (1903-1970) evolved to a style best known …

Exploring The Eclectic Piano Works Of Mathew Fuerst, Seung Kyung Baek

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

The purpose of this dissertation is to introduce its readers to contemporary classical composer Mathew Fuerst through an analysis of his five piano works: Three Etudes for Piano (1999), The Drift of Things (2009), Nocturne (Walking Along the Danube at Night in Budapest) for two pianos (2013). This resource provides Fuerst’s biography, his compositional style and briefly explores György Ligeti, one of the great influences on Fuerst’s compositional style. Each of his piano pieces is discussed in terms of genre, expressive issues and techniques, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, and texture. This study is a resource for pianists who consider analyzing …

Stories Retold: Exploring Real-Life Stories Through An Analysis Of William Vollinger's Art Songs For Lyric Soprano And Piano, Katie Mersch

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

This document explores the art songs for lyric soprano and piano of contemporary composer William Vollinger (b. 1945). Vollinger’s penchant for storytelling inspires his song compositions and the myriad of different stories he relays. In the majority of Vollinger’s art songs for voice and piano, he features the real-life stories of ordinary people and interweaves moral messages. Moreover, all song texts analyzed appear in prose rather than metered poetry, follow the linear narrative structure of short stories, and originate from a variety of unconventional sources.

Freytag’s Pyramid, a diagram created to analyze dramatic structures, serves as a useful model for …

When Did You Stop Singing?: Elementary Boys' Attitudes And Self-Efficacy Toward The Act Of Singing, Eric D. Wyler

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

The “missing males” epidemic is one which has baffled music educators and researchers for decades. Many research studies have been conducted to explore why boys choose to not be involved in choral ensembles at their middle and high schools. These studies list numerous retention/recruitment strategies; however, the problem remains. Many boys decide before they reach middle school whether they like to sing. The purposes of this study are to examine elementary age boys’ attitudes toward singing and determine at what grade level, if any, there is a significant difference in boys’ attitudes, to search for a relationship between boys’ attitudes …

Prairie Land, Prairie Heart, And Prairie Spirit: An Introductory Analysis And Performance Guide Of Gwyneth Walker’S Prairie Songs, Kiya Fife

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

Largely known for her choral compositions, American composer Gwyneth Walker (b. 1947) has composed hundreds of songs for solo voice. Walker’s songs demonstrate her unique compositional style which blends many characteristics of American music, including strong rhythms, open sonorities, and influences of rock, jazz, blues, and American folk music. With each work, Walker’s goal is not only to communicate to the audience, but for the music and poetry to deliver a specific musical imagery. Walker believes that the message of a song is not solely the poetry, but that the central images of the poem are the message. Walker believes …