A manuscript of a symphony kept on the bookshelves of a library is like a great painting hidden away in a museum where no one can see it. Music needs to be performed to be appreciated and embedded into a culture. The work of a composer must be made accurately easily accessible to musicians and the public for the work to be widely disseminated. This critical edition marks an effort in this direction to shed light on a major work of Mexican composer José Francisco Vásquez Cano (1896-1961).José F. Vásquez was one of the most prolific Mexican composers and accomplished conductors in the first half of the 20th century, yet there is little widespread knowledge about his life and works. This critical edition of the first movement of Symphony No. 2 (1929) will create a path to further performances and recordings, so that future generations in Mexico and abroad can acquire a wider appreciation of this composer’s role in the wider Mexican cultural heritage. This edition aims to show with transparency every critical decision made based on the score’s manuscript and presently available set of instrumental parts. Due to the continued efforts of José J. Vásquez (the composer’s son) to promote the recovery and performance of his father’s music, I have had access to a black and white scan of the full score’s manuscript, and high-definition color scans of 29 parts for each instrument, allowing me to accurately pinpoint possible errata in the manuscript. The critical commentary along with the digitized score aim to offer future conductors and performers access and insight into this important work by an invaluable composer.

For decades, music educators have discussed the need to expand the standard choral canon to address disparities across student demographics in collegiate choral programs. These conversations have proved insufficient, because they do not address the systemic and structural issues that are the main cause for the racial and gender disparities within various areas of choral music. To address how structural oppression has found its way into collegiate choral music, I have studied how the discourse, or language, found on several collegiate choral music program public websites upholds two main power structures within collegiate choral music: the white racial frame and settler colonialist thought. Through a fictionalized narrative based on my personal music education experiences called “Decolonizing Kiki: A Socratic Dialogue,” I provide a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of language found on current American collegiate choral program websites. The narrative analysis intentionally centered my body and marginalized identities in order to illustrate the need to reflect upon the impact of language in choral music education. In addition to addressing the white racial frame and colonialist knowledge systems and practices in the discourse of collegiate choral music, this document departs from a typical Western approach to educational research. The narrative analysis also serves as a personal educational currere, which has helped me affirm my cultural and ethnic identities, ground my teaching philosophy, and further reconceptualize the future of choral music education

Jane Austen’s depictions of musical performers and listeners in her novels suggest her belief that musical performances should strengthen intimacy between people, both between listeners and performers as well as among listeners. Austen commends music for its power to increase intimacy through honest expressions of taste, which more often arise in private performances, but she warns against its power to decrease intimacy through pretentious displays of taste, which more often arise in public performances. Austen’s belief that music allows for this healthy intimacy indicates that music has great significance in society. Austen suggests that music has a greater importance to everyday life than many may originally suppose, as it is a universal connection between people. Ultimately, Jane Austen’s perspective of music’s great power both to expose pretentiousness and to cultivate intimacy should lead all of her readers to recognize and respect music’s true power and to consider seriously the importance and role of music in their own lives.

In this study, I sought to learn how members of college women’s choirs feel about

their choir and women’s choirs in general. Singers from 19 institutions in the American

Choral Directors Association Southern division participated. From the potential survey

population (n=986), 302 respondents participated (response rate = 28%).

These research questions guided this study:

1. How do current members of college women’s choirs feel their choir is

perceived compared to other types of choirs at their college or university and

in their community?

2. How do current members of college women’s choirs feel about singing in this

group? About women’s choirs in general?

A researcher-developed survey instrument was used to gather demographic

information and other data related to the research questions. After a pilot study, the

survey was edited for clarity. The director of choral activities and the director of the

women’s choir at each institution was contacted via email. The schools that agreed to

participate received the link to the survey and an email script to send to students. Two

weeks later, a follow-up email was sent with the same materials. Two weeks after that,

the survey window closed. The data were collected and analyzed for frequency and

percentage. While analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests found no significant differences,

the analysis of some of the independent variables, especially those having to do with the

age and experience of the singers, were highly suggestive.

In this study, women’s choir members responded positively to statements about

the value of their choir within their institutions and communities. While respondents

often indicate that women’s choirs are seen as inferior to mixed choirs, they nevertheless

enjoy the repertoire they sing and like being challenged. Respondents answered

affirmatively in Likert-scale questions about their women’s choirs and women’s choirs in

general, but answered more critically in open-ended response questions about the same

topics. The survey results echo the findings of earlier studies, amplified by the choir

members’ own opinions. The data in this study offer clear means to ensure that all

students in all choirs are proud of their work and feel equally valued.

The purpose of this document is to create a template for a master’s degree in Collaborative Piano using data collected from an online survey and from publicly available information on institutional websites. The history and development of the graduate collaborative piano degree in the United States is examined to provide the background to this research. In addition to the degree template, other aspects useful for the creation of such a degree are discussed, including proposed required and optional courses, financial considerations, community outreach opportunities, and balancing off-campus professional engagements with on-campus academic duties. A list of all institutions currently offering collaborative piano degrees at the graduate level is included in the appendix.

The degree template conforms to the requirements of the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) in order to allow the greatest number of institutions the ability to embrace the curriculum. Designed to be flexible within the overall requirements of the degree, the proposed curriculum favors a balanced approach between instrumental and vocal collaboration, with a combination of traditional courses, project-based courses, and customizable elective courses designed to develop important competencies in collaborative piano. Both solo and collaborative applied lessons would be required, with three coached collaborative recitals and one uncoached collaborative recital required to fulfill the degree requirements. The project-oriented Collaborative Piano Seminar course has the flexibility to allow team teaching or community partnerships and requires an off-campus class performance once per academic year.

The goal of this template is to provide a pedagogically solid foundation for a master’s degree in collaborative piano, with the flexibility to add a variety of elective courses best suited to the needs and talents of the students, faculty, and institution. The synthesis of classical and popular styles within the curriculum is designed to give the collaborative pianist diverse musical competencies in order to succeed and thrive as a professional musician in the 21st century, whether the student continues with self-education after the master’s degree, pursues further study at the doctoral level, or enters the professional world.