Music Commons^™

Unlearning Don Carlos: Historical And Fictional Elements Of Innovation In César Vichard De Saint-Réal’S 'Dom Carlos, Nouvelle Historique,' Friedrich Schiller’S 'Don Karlos, Infant Von Spanien,' And Giuseppe Verdi’S 'Don Carlos', Maria-Cristina Necula

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The story of the sixteenth-century Spanish prince, Don Carlos, has inspired numerous literary and musical adaptations that, despite the artistic limitations of historically-based content, reflect an astonishing scope of creative freedom. The myth created around Don Carlos originated in European consciousness as early as 1568. Various theories recorded in political reports and in historical works insinuated that the prince had been murdered while incarcerated by orders of his father, King Philip II. Simultaneously, hatred of Spain, intensified by Philip’s violent suppression of the revolt in the Netherlands, determined exiled Flemish nobles to launch an anti-Philip propaganda. The mystery of Don …

Baroque Pianism: Perspectives On Playing Baroque Keyboard Music On The Piano, With Emphasis On Bach’S Fugues In The Well-Tempered Clavier, Chih-Tung Cheng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In a famous quote, Schumann described the fugues in Bach's Well-tempered Clavier as pianists’ “daily bread.” This dissertation explains how these fugues can be pianists’ practical daily bread by encouraging them to explore a virtuosity of subtlety. I assert that the compositional complexity in these fugues increases pianistic challenges in both interpretive and technical aspects; these challenges can lead pianists to explore a multi-faced pianistic awareness in a way that they may not encounter when performing other styles of music.

Modern Conducting: An Exhibition Of Traditional And Commercial Conducting, Mark Edward Mcdowell

Masters Theses

From the 20th century onward, there has been many notable musical and technological developments. These developments have led to the formation of new musical genres and commercial ensembles. The new genres and commercial ensembles have pertinent implications for modern conductors. In addition to traditional forms such as instrumental, choral, and mixed ensembles, modern conductors must be aware of the unique characteristics of the new commercial ensembles. These new ensembles include the film scoring stage, the jazz ensemble, and the worship ensemble. In addition to utilizing the fundamental concepts of traditional conducting, modern conductors must also attain a working knowledge of …

Exploring Political Action And Socialization Through Group Improvisation Within The Music Of Frederic Rzewski And Cornelius Cardew, Marcel Rominger

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the late 1960s, socialist composers, Cornelius Cardew and Frederic Rzewski, each established ensembles with the purpose of performing works consisting of experimental forms of improvisation. By employing group improvisation, and including untrained, non-musicians within their performances, they strove to use these ensembles as a model for society itself; this model includes a dissolution of the hierarchy among performers and the barrier between performer and audience. Improvisation helped music resist commodification by the culture industry or appropriation by authoritarian regimes for the purpose of propaganda. This dissertation aims to explore how Cardew and Rzewski constituted effective socialization and political action …

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Sound Scripts

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Sound Scripts

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Editorial Introduction: Circuits Of Art And Communication In The Twenty-First Century, Jonathan W. Marshall

Sound Scripts

A founding editor of Sound Scripts, Jonathan W. Marshall, introduces the essays that follow in volume six of the journal, taking the reader through a tour of informatic exchanges, truths and falsehoods.

Fake It ‘Til You Make It: The Virtual Orchestra In New Electronic Music, Michael Terren

Sound Scripts

This paper describes a variety of audio technologies under the neologism “the virtual orchestra,” their relationship with neoliberal capitalism, and four electronic music works that utilise these technologies to highlight this relationship. The virtual orchestra comprises digital technologies that emulate orchestral performances, ranging from the ersatz sounds of General MIDI in the 1990s (often used in computer game soundtracks), to orchestral sample libraries, which can be virtually indiscernible from a well-recorded orchestral performance. It is suggested that the virtual orchestra emerged as part of a cultural movement that privileges individualism and control, and that this has precedence in the structure …

Composer-Performer Collaboration In The Development Of Kinabuhi | Kamatayon For Percussion And Electronics, Louise Devenish, Stuart James

Sound Scripts

This paper provides an outline of the collaborative approach taken in the creation of electroacoustic percussion work Kinabuhi | Kamatayon (2015) by Stuart James for performance by Louise Devenish. Written for eleven Indonesian bossed gongs and electronics, the work involved creative and systematic exploration of various percussive and electronic techniques with the primary aim of re-contextualising these instruments. This paper offers an overview of the collaboration process with percussionist Louise Devenish and how these techniques were used in the work. This includes discussion of the performance practices developed and a suitable notation system for effectively executing these compositional ideas.

Silences [Score], Sage J. Harlow

Sound Scripts

The piece consists of nine (or ten) sections alternating between free and scored; the scored sections all consist of silences of different qualities asking the players to explore ways to facilitate the scored silences. In composing with scored silences, the piece attempts to challenge the idea of silence as a transcendental signifier (or of signifying nothing) and seeks to question the assumption that a piece can convey particular experiences for an audience—silences, in particular, can evoke vastly different responses in people experiencing the ‘same thing’. In this sense, one might read the piece as ‘impossible’ and/or an exploration of the …

Addressing Climate Change Scepticism Through The Sonic Arts, Cissi Tsang

Sound Scripts

This paper discusses the continued denial of climate change despite overwhelming scientific evidence and agreement, through viewing climate change as a “hyperobject”—that is, a concept of such massive temporal and spatial dimensions that it defies traditional understanding. One of the challenges of the scientific community is to combat such scepticism through new ways of framing information, and the sonic arts offers an alternative presentation of truth through its ability to create emotional and narrative rapport, and also humanise esoteric information. This paper will focus on various methods of communicating climate change data aurally—such as sonification of data, and ecoacoustic methods …

Wild Swans By Elena Kats-Chernin: The Journey From The Australian Ballet To The Uk Dance Charts, Helen Rusak

Sound Scripts

In 2003 composer Elena Kats-Chernin collaborated with choreographer Meryl Tankard to produce Wild Swans, a ballet based upon the theme of Hans Christian Anderson’s enduring tale evoking the sufferings of Eliza’s fate to save her brothers from the evil curse of their stepmother. It resulted in a score rich with a wide range of musical sources underscoring a tableaux of dance and images beautifully evocative of the tale. The work was premiered by the Australian Ballet at the Sydney Opera House on 29 April 2003. This paper looks at the unexpected journey that one of the musical movements from the …

Leonora Duarte (1610–1678): Converso Composer In Antwerp, Elizabeth A. Weinfield

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Leonora Duarte (1610–1678), a converso of Jewish descent living in Antwerp, is the author of seven five-part Sinfonias for viol consort — the only known seventeenth-century viol music written by a woman. This music is testament to a formidable talent for composition, yet very little is known about the life and times in which Duarte produced her work. Her family were merchants and art collectors of Jewish descent who immigrated from Portugal in the early sixteenth century to escape the Inquisition; in exile in Antwerp, they achieved enormous success and provided the means with which to educate their children and …

School Of Music Faculty/Staff Newsletter, September 2019, School Of Music

School of Music Faculty/Staff Newsletter

Accomplishments and news from the faculty and staff of the School of Music at Illinois State University.

Afro-Cuba Transnational: Recordings And The Mediation Of Afro-Cuban Traditional Music, Johnny Frias

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes the way audio and video recordings and the internet have impacted, shaped, and helped create a transnational Afro-Cuban music scene. My focus will be on the most popular and widely-recorded genres of Afro-Cuban music—rumba and the religious repertoire of Santería, particularly batá drumming—both of which I also perform regularly with other Cuban musicians in Miami. Incorporating interviews, online ethnographic research, and participant-observation as a musician, my research has three main arguments.

First, recordings of Afro-Cuban music helped create a transnational Afro-Cuban music scene by increasing the popularity of these traditions outside of Cuba, including their amateur performance …

Imagining Africa: An Analysis Of Tropes And Motifs In Turn Of The Century Black Music, Shane Ortale

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

References to Africa exist in different forms in diasporic music from every country in the New World. In the case of the United States, an abundance of song lyrics of black writers and musicians from the turn of the twentieth century contain imaginings of the African continent. This thesis analyzes the many ways that these depictions were produced within the minstrel and vaudeville genres. While these artists faced many obstacles that limited the scope of their lyrical content, they used diverse strategies to undermine the racist world in which they lived. By juxtaposing and conflating tropes about black folks in …

Is Love A Ladder? Reading Plato With Leonard Bernstein, Joshua T. Parks

The Hilltop Review

This paper reads Leonard Bernstein's Serenade after Plato's "Symposium" as a careful interpretation of and commentary on Plato's text. While a straightforward reading of Diotima's speech in Plato's Symposium suggests that human relationships are merely an instrumental step toward higher loves, Bernstein's music emphasizes the intrinsic goodness of interpersonal love. The connections between the two works have been dismissed as superficial by critics, but Bernstein's piece is actually carefully engaged with the narrative structure of Plato's text. It therefore encourages a re-reading of Plato's dialogue in which its form shapes and complicates its meaning. By depicting in music the interpersonal …

Student Recital: Andersen Broom, Horn, Andersen Broom, Bobbie Kesler-Corleto

Student Recitals

Andersen Broom is a student of Marlene Ford. This recital is given in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Music, Music Performance degree.

Andersen Broom, horn

Bobbie Kesler-Corleto, piano

Key Notes: The Newsletter Of The Department Of Music, Georgia Southern University

School of Music: News & Publications (2017-2023)

• Faculty showcases kick off concert season!

Charles W. Bolen Faculty Recital Series: Adriana Ransom, Cello; August 29, 2019, Adriana Ransom

School of Music Programs

Kemp Recital Hall
August 29, 2019
Thursday Evening
7:30 p.m.