Music Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2796
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Item TONES IN BLACK: A HISTORY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN BASS/BARITONES IN CLASSICAL MUSIC: IN THE ECHOES OF ANCESTORS, A PIONEER’S VOICE(2024) McIlwain-Lightfoot, VaShawn Savoy; Short, Kevin C.; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation project has three major foci: a) to trace the history of classically trained African American Bass/Baritone vocalists through performance, recordings, and narrative; b) to recognize the historical performances of African American Bass/Baritone vocal pioneers and the significant contributions they made to the accessibility of opportunities for other African Americans within these voice types; and c) to discuss how Bass/Baritone community performances can promote social connectedness and DEI in opera. In addressing these foci, the paper will emphasize how the performances of Bass/Baritone vocal artists, past and present, have a) made African Americans, in general, more acceptable to White audiences and b) changed the perceptions of White Americans about who African Americans are and what they are capable of. Methodology involved securing physical/digital historical data from newspapers, journals, and books; collecting photos, programs, and articles from the private library of a former University of Maryland professor; conducted oral history interviews of students and progeny of the first African American Baritone to sing with a major opera company in the U.S. (Todd Duncan); delivered community performances domestically and internationally as a current example of the legacy of African American classical vocal artists, specifically Bass/Baritones. This project’s accounting of historical performances can serve to recognize unknown or forgotten contemporaries and predecessors.Item A REVISIONIST HISTORY OF INDEPENDENT CLASSICAL PERCUSSION SOLOISTS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY(2024) Rocheteau, Robert Alexandre; Votta, Michael; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines the marimbists, multi-percussionists, and solo-percussionists who were independent classical soloists in the twentieth century. Traditionally, scholarship has seen the histories of these percussion soloists as separate from one another. By proposing new frameworks and contexts, this revisionist history shows how marimbists, multi-percussionists, and solo-percussionists form a continuum. These frameworks mark pivotal shifts in history and include percussion practices, eras of percussion soloists, and generations. The “percussion practices” framework shows how composers have used percussion in classical music. The “eras of percussion soloists” framework shows what percussionists did and what percussion instruments they performed on. The “generations” framework shows how each particular solo art form evolved.