Digital Commons Network^™

The American Symphony Orchestra Today: Problems In Community, Diversity, And Representation, Hilary Slade Jansen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the symphony orchestra and its socio-political context in the United States. Using three orchestral case studies—the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Venezuela’s El Sistema—I examine the ways in which American symphony orchestras have responded both today and in the past to the public and academic discourse around social inclusion. Interweaving musicology, sociology, urban anthropology, cultural studies, education, economics, ethnomusicology, economics, data from grant-giving institutions, and from symphony orchestras themselves, I seek to situate the wider discourse on social justice in the arts (which has, until recently, lived largely outside of academia) within a musicological …

“A Space Where You Can Imagine In”: Queer World Building With Wynne Greenwood’S Tracy + The Plastics, Colleen M. O'Shea

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Tracy and the Plastics was a video and music project conceived and performed by artist Wynne Greenwood from 1999 - 2006. In it, Greenwood played lead singer Tracy alongside keyboard player, Nikki and drummer, Cola (both also played by Greenwood) where Tracy performed live alongside prerecorded images of Nikki and Cola. For Greenwood, the interaction between Tracy, the Plastics, and the audience provided an opportunity to create new, intentional worlds together. In this paper, I will demonstrate that Greenwood relies on collisions and alternative temporalities to instigate the creation of these worlds with her audience. I will incorporate the principles …

New Chinese Music In New York City: From Revival To Musical Transnationalism, Serena Yiai Wang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Pulitzer Prize (2011, Zhou Long’s Madame White Snake), a Metropolitan opera commission (Tan Dun’s The First Emperor, premiered 2006), and the Ives Living Award (Chen Yi, 2001) are just some of the high-profile awards and commission bestowed upon Chinese émigré composers who have studied and built their professional reputation in New York City. The works of Chinese composers constitute what I call “new Chinese music,” which I argue has played a defining role in New York City’s cultural landscape and in the development of Western art music in general. The influence of Chinese composers and their works …

The Singing Self: An Exploration Of Vocality And Selfhood In Contemporary Vocal Practice, Emily C. Eagen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Every vocal training technique relies on understandings of how a singer’s “voice,” both literal and metaphorical, participates in the act of interpreting the works of composers. Western classical singing, as codified by the early twentieth century, typically puts the singer in the role of the “medium” or “channel” for the composer. Later twentieth-century reactions promised liberation from the composer’s “voice” with a validation of the singer’s “authentic” or “natural” voice. This dissertation questions both sides of this binary and asks: what alternative models are possible? This work is in three parts. The first section provides an overview of pedagogical constructions …

Extracting Theory From Practice: A Computational Analysis Of The Persian Radif, Sepideh Shafiei

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation studies radif, the repertoire/system of Persian classical music, by developing a framework for computational research on vocal music performance. The radif consists of seven dastgāhs and five āvāzes (secondary dastgāhs). Each dastgāh consists of several pieces (gushes). Throughout this research, I draw on three areas of knowledge to study each subject: the historical aspects, the current theories, and the practice. When possible, I attempt to bridge the gap between theory and practice by extracting the relevant information from practice. To this end, I use and modify existing computational methods for analyzing audio and symbolic data. The main subjects …

Teaching Choral Music Of The African Diaspora In The United States: Toward A “Living Black History”, H. Roz Woll

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In higher education choral curricula, the opportunity to study the breathtakingly rich scope of music rooted in Africa and the African diaspora with rigor and depth is often marginalized, neglected, or missing. If studied, it may be framed in the context of “other music” in contrast to music of the Western European canon, creating an oppositional framework rather than an interdependent one. Moreover, opportunities to study the political economy of this music in relationship to race, class, gender, and religion are lacking. This has multiple ramifications for music students’ preparedness to engage in global habits of citizenship in support of …

The Making Of An Avant-Gardist: A Study Of Rafael Aponte-Ledée’S Early Life And Works (1957–1966), Noel Torres-Rivera

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the interconnectedness of political and musical discourses in Latin America by examining the formative years of Puerto Rican composer Rafael Aponte-Ledée (b. 1938), a leading figure in the Puerto Rican avant-garde movement in the late 1960s. Through extensive archival research, oral history, and qualitative field work, I analyze his time as a student at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid (1957-1964) and at the Centro Latinoamericano de Altos Estudios Musicales del Instituto Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires (1965-1966). With this, I address the intricate network of musical works, events, mentors, institutional discourses, textbooks, technologies, …

Dancing Through Time: A Biographical Look On The Evolution Of Tap Dance, Jaimie Cranford

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A uniquely American art form, tap dance has often been misrepresented and under-appreciated when positioned alongside other dance forms. This is largely due to the form’s racialized history, which builds upon contributions from African-American culture. Unlike other dance forms, which stem from white European traditions, tap dance evolved out of a necessity for cultural preservation as enslaved Africans adapted to life in America. As tap dance evolved, its association with slave culture led to it not being taken seriously; if anything, tap dancers were viewed simply as “entertainers” – certainly not as artists. Using a biographical lens, this work looks …

From Object To Icon: The Unpredictable Path To Everlastingness, Donna M. Desideri

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores how a squeaky-clean object transformed into a girl-next-door icon and became a role model for generations to come. And in an industry built on illusions and dreams, reality wore many masks.

Still in its beginning stages and looking to sell tickets, the motion picture industry needed to reconstruct its current downscale public image by presenting a much-improved polished and upscale public image to audiences, all while silencing contradictory images and information. Appealing to a middle-class sensibility to boost this new public image gave the motion picture industry the acceptance it was seeking. By marketing to middle-class audiences, …

The Politics Of Hip Hop: A Political Analysis Of Hip Hop’S History And Its Complicated Relationship With Capitalism, Danielle Garcia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the emergence of the Hip Hop movement in the 1970s in areas of New York City often referred to more generally as the South Bronx. Focusing mostly on the 1970s and 1980s, this thesis explores the underlying conditions that Hip Hop was born out of. Influenced by both global and national politics, Hip Hop provided a common space for underrepresented individuals and groups to unify, create common identities, and liberate themselves from the oppressive norms and political activity of a rich, mostly white, and dominant American society that tried to erase or silence them. This revolutionary aspect …

For The Love Of Inner Voices: Miriam Gideon, Orchestration, And Fortunato, Whitney E. George

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Post-tonal American opera composer Miriam Gideon (1906-1996) completed a chamber opera, perhaps intended for television, titled Fortunato, based on a dark comic tragedy set in turn-of-the-20th-century, economically-ravaged Madrid. The expressive staged work follows the life of the unfortunate title character Fortunato in three operatic vignettes, each one becoming more desperate and moribund by the scene. A curious piece in Gideon’s oeuvre, the work remained unfinished, with a piano score for the complete work, but only a sample of her orchestration for Scene 1. This study examines the orchestration of Scene 1 as a template for creating an orchestration similar in …

Retrat Del ‘Clubber’ Adolescent, Una Mirada Retrospectiva Als ‘Balearic Beats’, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

Quan jo tenia uns deu anys, crec que era l’estiu del 1972, els meus pares van apuntar-me a un campament de l’OJE a Sa Caleta, a Eivissa. Ningú a casa nostra tenia cap tendència tardofeixista. A les escoles dels pobles de Mallorca, però, arribaven avisos anunciant dues setmanes de salut, esport, disciplina i camaraderia (indicis d’allò que alguns ha anomenat male bonding, perquè els campaments naturalment eren exclusivament masculins) i alguns pares, animats pel fet que tot era de franc, enviaven els fills a aquests llocs de possible sinistre ensinistrament. I a pesar de tot, la majoria de pares …

Coda, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of CODA (2021), directed by Siân Heder.

The Light Of The World- Winter Concert, Andrews University

Concerts and Event Programs 2020-2021

The University Singers, Pioneer Mens Chorus and Canta Bella all under the direction of Stephen Zork give a concert celebrating light.

2020-2021 Senior Recital - Austin King (Double Bass), Austin King, Sheng Yuan Kuan

Junior and Senior Recitals

No abstract provided.

Making ​Activist Songbook​ Virtual, Byron Au Yong

Journal of Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Scholarship

In Making Activist Songbook Virtual, composer and professor Byron Au Yong, discusses the challenges and complexities of moving 53 new activist raps and songs to a virtual format. As the songbook was participatory in nature, the creative team also had to examine methods of fostering online civic engagement.

Concerto-Aria Competition Finals, January 27, 2021, Sey Ahn, Timothy Semanik

School of Music Programs

Center for the Performing Arts
January 27, 2021
Wednesday Evening
7:00 p.m.

Jury Recognition Recital, January 25, 2021, Illinois State University School Of Music

School of Music Programs

Center for the Performing Arts
January 25, 2021
Monday Evening
7:00 p.m.

Amour Symphony Thesis, Vanessa C. Williams

LSU Master's Theses

The word Amour means love. Amour Symphony represents God's love to me. Each movement represents growing up as a Christian under the Love of God. Amour Symphony is a four movement symphony for full orchestra. Each movement follows the traditional movements of a symphony. Movement I is Sonata Form. Movement II is Theme and Variation Form. Movement III is Minuet and Trio Form. Movement IV is Sonata Form.

Celticism And American Musical Nationalism, 1889-1904, Daniel Weaver

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

In the final decades of the nineteenth century, American composers turned with increasing frequency to Irish and Scottish sources of inspiration, a trend that manifested not only in songs but also in large-scale instrumental works such as sonatas and symphonies. Though many of these works have been discussed individually, this Celtic turn has yet to be investigated as a response to questions about national musical identity, an issue that had come to dominate musical discourse in America by the end of the century—particularly in the wake of Czech composer Antonin Dvořák’s challenge to American composers in 1893 to forge a …

Charles W. Bolen Faculty Recital Series: Ben Stiers, Percussion; January 12, 2021, Ben Stiers

School of Music Programs

Kemp Recital Hall
January 12, 2021
Tuesday Evening
8:00 p.m.

Charles W. Bolen Faculty Recital Series Program Notes, January 12, 2021, Illinois State University School Of Music

School of Music Programs

Program Notes

Censorship Of Rock And Roll, Meaghan Curtin

Emerging Writers

This short essay explores the history of censorship of rock and roll music.

Eggs, Hair, Seeds, Milk, Patrick West

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Short story

Looking For Marianne North, John Charles Ryan

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

This poem reflects on the life of peripatetic botanical illustrator Marianne North (1830-1890) who travelled to Southwest Australia in 1880.

Critically Imagining A Decolonised Vision In Australian Poetry, Cassandra Julie O'Loughlin

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Postmodern ecocriticism, given its broad range of perspectives, offers an agreeable platform for articulating a new, advanced and inclusive framework for a decolonising theorisation of literature and the environment. This article seeks to identify Australian Western decolonising poetry that sits in harmony with Indigenous aural and literary versions of communicative engagement with Country. The concept of human embeddedness in ecological relationships and biological processes as part of a complex matrix of interdependent things is embraced. In particular this article focuses on inclusivity and interconnectedness of all life forms to illustrate aesthetic and conceptual interfaces between Aboriginal Australia and Western poetics. …

The Dancing Between Two Worlds Project: Background, Methodology And Learning To Approach Community In Place, Anindita Banerjee, Shaun Mcleod, Gretel Taylor, Patrick L. West

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

This article recounts the history to date of the Dancing Between Two Worlds (DBTW) project, which was initiated by a team of artist-scholars at Deakin University in 2018. DBTW’s brief was to engage the Indian community living in the western fringes of Melbourne in a project on civic belonging, cross-cultural artistic identity, and the performance of outer-suburban Indian diaspora. Working with the creative and community energies that are activated at the intersection of the creative arts and demographically inflected place, the Deakin researchers collaborated with local artists with an Indian background on a major performance in late 2019: …

Issue Introduction Volume 10, David Gray

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Issue Introduction and Editorial for Volume 10, Issue 1.

Complete Issue 1, Volume 10, David Gray

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Complete Issue 1, Volume 10

The Alphorn In North America: “Blown Yodeling” Within A Transnational Community, Maureen E. Kelly

Theses and Dissertations

Musicians in North America have adopted the alphorn as a tool that builds community, enhances musical training, and interprets the Swiss tradition for a new generation. Meaningful combinations of experiences and identities combine to create a robust relationship and kinship among alphorn players in an intentionally international community.