ABSTRACT

This project features five new pieces for clarinet commissioned from three different composers including:

1. Rasa by Jeffrey Ouper

2. Faerie Tale Dances by Jeffrey Ouper

3. Amalgamated Widget by Tavia Sullens

4. Faerie Suite by Theresa Martin

5. Time Lapse by Theresa Martin

Faerie Suite and Amalgamated Widget are for unaccompanied clarinet; Time Lapse is a trio for clarinet, bass clarinet, and piano; Faerie Tale Dances is a trio for E-flat clarinet, sopranino recorder, and toy piano; and Rasa is a quartet for E-flat clarinet, two A clarinets, and bass clarinet. These pieces challenge the performer in various ways, including complex rhythm, use of extended techniques such as glissando, flutter tongue, and circular breathing, and synthetic and non-traditional scales. The composers were given guidelines prior to the compositional process to create works with a thematic connection to mythology, folklore, or fairy tales, and inspired by dance and non-western or traditional harmonies and idioms. This document offers background information about the composers and the works, and a performance guide is included for each. This guide provides recommendations and suggestions for each piece. Also included are interviews with each of the composers. Accompanying this document are recordings of each of the five pieces, performed by the author.

Although music is regarded as a universal language, it is rare to find musicians of different ages, ability levels, and backgrounds interacting with each other in collaborative performances. There is a dearth of mixed-ability-level wind band and string orchestra repertoire, and the few pieces that exist fail to celebrate the talents of the youngest and least-experienced performers. Composers writing music for school-age ensembles have also been excluded from the collaborative process, rarely communicating with the young musicians for whom they are writing.

This project introduced twenty-nine compositions into the wind band and string orchestra repertoire via a collaboration that engaged multiple constituencies. Students of wind and string instruments from Phoenix’s El Sistema-inspired Harmony Project and the Tijuana-based Niños de La Guadalupana Villa Del Campo worked together with students at Arizona State University and composers from Canada, Finland, and across the United States to learn and record concertos for novice-level soloists with intermediate-level accompaniment ensembles.

This project was influenced by the intergenerational ensembles common in Finnish music institutes. The author provides a document which includes a survey of the existing concerto repertoire for wind bands and previous intergenerational and multicultural studies in the field of music. The author then presents each of the mixed-ability concertos created and recorded in this project and offers biographical information on the composers. Finally, the author reflects upon qualitative surveys completed by the project’s participants.

Most the new concertos are available to the public. This music can be useful in the development and implementation of similar collaborations of musicians of all ages and abilities.

This document is an expansion of the information presented at a lecture-recital on March 24, 2017, at Arizona State University. The program consisted of ten arias selected from the cantatas and oratorios of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), all for soprano with oboe, oboe d'amore, or oboe da caccia obbligato.

The document first discusses the place and importance of oboe obbligatos in Bach's vocal works. In all, there are 173 arias with oboe obbligatos from the sacred and secular cantatas, oratorios, and the passions. Of these, 56 are arias for soprano. The ten selected for this document are intended to illustrate the rich variety of this repertoire and especially the ways in which Bach interprets and conveys the meaning of their texts.

Most of Bach's arias that feature the oboe, or the short-lived oboe d'amore or the oboe da caccia, come from his early years in Leipzig (1723-1726). The document examines the circumstances there that led to so much music for these instruments, discussing Bach's connection with instrument-makers and musicians, notably the oboist Johann Caspar Gleditsch (1684-1747).

The body of the document describes individually the ten arias performed on the May of 2017 recital, which come from BWV 1, 21, 74, 94, 98, 144, 187, 199, 202, and 248. Texts and translations are provided, and background information is given for each. The da capo structures and any distinctive features are discussed. Each description focuses on the meaning of the text, the musical character that conveys the overall affect, and specific devices of mood- and word-painting. In all cases, the close affinity of the voice and the oboe is a central concern.

ABSTRACT

This study examines the experiences of five women doctoral students in music education. The goal was to gain insight into the important experiences and concerns they encountered during their studies. While the literature on women in other fields indicates that socialization of women to the academy differs from that of their male counterparts, this concern has yet to be addressed in the field of music education.

Participants, selected to show maximum variation in personal and professional characteristics, were women who had previously taught in K-12 settings and who were enrolled in or recently graduated from a doctoral program in music education in the United States. Data were collected primarily through in-depth interviews and photo elicitation, and were analyzed through both individual case and cross-case analyses.

All of the women initially stated gender was not an issue that influenced their doctoral studies, but analysis showed that they had clearly internalized the socially constructed roles and expectations reflected in society, and that those roles and expectation did, indeed, impact their choices and behaviors prior to and during their doctoral studies. Three facets of gender were important, specifically socially constructed roles and expectations for women in both their families and in their doctoral studies, gender performativity related to the male-centered expectations in academia, and the importance of intersectionality. The participants’ doctoral experiences were contextualized not just by their gender, but also by their race/ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, and age. Analysis supports other researchers’ findings that women doctoral students may have different experiences in their doctoral studies than their male counterparts.

Recommendations for doctoral programs in music education and music teacher educators are provided. This study’s findings suggest further research is needed to investigate the impact of gender balance in doctoral cohort and faculty, amount of teaching experience prior to studies, and educational background or prior research experience on women’s doctoral experiences, as well as the roles of intersectionality and performativity for women in an academic context.

This creative project provides an adaptation of J. S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, for the Fritts Organ at Arizona State University. This organ was designed and built by Paul Fritts and Co. in 1992, and is in the style of the high-Baroque instruments of Northern Europe. Along with the musical score of the adaptation, this document discusses the registration choices included as well as relevant historical and performance practice details about the piece. A link to the recording of the author’s April 2017 performance of this edition of the Goldberg Variations on the ASU Fritts Organ is included with the project.

This research project introduces the Czech composer Miloslav Gajdoš (b. 1948) to classical guitarists through his composition Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, composed in 1998. Gajdoš is a double bass virtuoso who has enjoyed a successful career performing, composing, and teaching. After the fall of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia in 1989, Gajdoš was allowed more opportunities to perform outside the Czech Republic and to become better known throughout the world. His Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, originally for solo double bass, works well on the guitar and is a rewarding piece to learn and perform. A transcription is presented here that is of publishable quality, together with a biography of Gajdoš and a performance guide. The biography was written from available research materials as well as from direct email correspondence with the composer, and includes authorized quotations from those emails. This project also includes a description of the piece together with musical and technical suggestions that will aid the performer in creating a satisfying musical interpretation. Chapter Three includes a description of the left-hand challenges that were encountered while the piece was being transcribed and the solutions that were devised to mitigate them. Finding new pieces to transcribe for the guitar has long been an important activity of serious players, and this transcription adds a substantial and expressive piece to the growing repertoire of the classical guitar.

This study focuses on three songs from stage works of Kurt Weill (1900-1950): “September Song” from Knickerbocker Holiday (1938), “Speak Low” from One Touch of Venus (1943), and “Lost in the Stars” from Lost in the Stars (1949). All from Weill’s time in the United States, these songs are adaptable as solos and have become American standards performed in various arrangements and styles of popular music by many different artists.

The first part of this study is a biographical sketch of Weill’s life and music. It is intended to provide context for the three songs by tracing his beginnings as a German composer of stage works with volatile political messages, to his flight to the United States and his emergence as a composer of Broadway successes.

The second part is a commentary on the composition of the three selected songs. The lyrics and musical content are examined to show how Weill’s settings convey the dramatic mood and meaning as well as the specific nuances of the words. Description of the context of these songs explains how they were textually and musically intended to advance the plot and the emotional arc of the dramatic characters. The popularity of these songs endures beyond their original shows, and so there is discussion of how other artists have adapted and performed them, and available recordings are cited.

Weill’s songs, his little masterpieces, have proven to be truly evocative and so attractive to American audiences that they have undergone myriad adaptations. This study seeks to provide the personal and historical background of Kurt Weill’s music and to demonstrate why these three songs in particular have proven to have such lasting appeal.

Opera education is a relatively new addition to opera companies in the United States, introducing children and adults to opera and spreading the message that operas are dramatic stories told through music. This paper focuses on the opera education group OperaTunity and its relationship with the company Arizona Opera, which is based in Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona. The majority of the paper consists of a history of Arizona Opera, the establishment of its Opera Education Department, and the inception and activities of OperaTunity. The information in this account comes from interviews with personnel involved with OperaTunity and from documents pertinent to the program. This study also examines the reception and success of the group in Arizona and includes examples of educational materials to provide to teachers who are introducing children and adults to opera. This account of the history and activities of OperaTunity is intended to aid future educators and opera companies in developing opera education programs.

Literature is an important source for children to learn about many aspects of life, including music, and, more specifically, the trombone as a special type of musical instrument. The project at hand seeks to encourage the introduction of the trombone to young children through books and stories in which the instrument is featured prominently. Seven such books by various authors are identified and analyzed, and a study guide for each is presented. In addition, a brief history of children’s literature and a discussion of its use in the music classroom provide context for these seven books as well as any music-themed literature. Finally, the centerpiece of this project is the creation of a new book intended for children and featuring the trombone, written and illustrated by the present author.

This study seeks to identify the unwritten rules and standards of professional conduct followed by the music community. Its central source of information is a pair of surveys sent to professional musicians, specifically members of large instrumental ensembles across the United States. The first survey posed multiple-choice questions on topics related to personal professional standards, rehearsal and concert etiquette and protocol, and ethical obligations. The second survey followed up with consenting individual participants and requested stories and anecdotes from the respondents’ professional careers. The surveys yielded 70 responses from the initial 350 solicitations, representing 35 professional ensembles in 30 cities and 20 states, 18 different instruments, 41 principal players, and nearly 2,000 combined years of professional music experience. The findings shed light on many specific aspects of professionalism in the music community, and they demonstrate that an unwritten code of largely understood and observed expectations both exists and varies minimally throughout professional ensembles across the United States. The consummate professional musician is prompt, prepared, and observant of an array of expectations generated by the routines and hierarchies of rehearsals and concerts. Understanding the professional attributes and practices of successful ensemble members is important to aspiring musicians, and so this study is intended as a useful resource both for students and their teachers.