Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item A CONDUCTOR’S GUIDE TO BÉLA BARTÓK’S CANTATA PROFANA(2024) Lofton, Nathan; Ferdinand, Jason M; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Béla Bartók composed Cantata Profana in 1930, at the height of his interwar European career. Bartók’s only major choral-orchestral work, the cantata is a synthesis of Bartók’s immersion in Eastern European folk music and his mature compositional aesthetic. Cantata Profana is a work of modest scale, approximately twenty minutes in duration, though it is also one that makes considerable musical demands of a double chorus, tenor and baritone soloists, and a full orchestra. Above all, it is a work that is considered by many prominent Bartók scholars to be among the composer’s finest creations. Despite all of this, Cantata Profana is so infrequently performed that most musicians know it only by reputation or through one of the handful of existing recordings, if they know it at all. This dissertation gathers the resources a choral conductor needs when preparing to perform Cantata Profana. These resources include a brief history of the cantata’s genesis and analyses of the work’s structure and musical elements. The dissertation examines the required performing forces, choral divisi, Hungarian diction, rehearsal strategies, and programming considerations, and provides possible solutions to these as some of the challenges inherent in the work. The last section of the dissertation considers the interpretation and meaning of the cantata. Appendices are devoted to a literal English translation and International Phonetic Alphabet transliteration of Cantata Profana’s Hungarian text; a selected performance history of the work; and an annotated discography of the available recordings. The ultimate goal of this dissertation is to make Cantata Profana a more approachable work, and to encourage more conductors, choruses, and orchestras to undertake its performance.Item Music Education in Prince George's County, Maryland, From 1950 to 1992: An Oral History Account of Three Prominent Music Educators and Their Times(2004-11-23) Moore, Judy Williams; McCarthy, Marie; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation documents the professional lives of three prominent music educators in Prince George's County, MarylandLeRoy Battle, Maurice Allison, and Dorothy Pickardwhose careers from 1950 to 1992 spanned the period of school desegregation and its aftermath. The professional lives of Battle, Allison, and Pickard, their philosophies of teaching, and the instructional strategies they used in building music programs of distinction are examined employing methods of oral history. The interviews of twenty-three other Prince George's County professionals, including a county executive, a superintendent, county teachers, and county administrators, combine with testimony of the three music educators in creating the fabric of this historical dissertation. Set in Prince George's County, scene of dramatic societal change between 1950 and 1992, county educational, cultural, societal, and political processes are explored to gain understanding of the lives and times of Battle, Allison, and Pickard. Although the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling ended the era of "separate-but-equal" schooling in the United States, it was not until December 29, 1972, that a countywide system of busing of students was ordered in Prince George's County to enforce racial balance in schools. Busing altered the racial distribution in county schools and was thought by many to have precipitated "white flight" of Prince George's residents to surrounding jurisdictions. Remaining county residents voted to limit taxes for county services, creating a financial burden for the schools, the police, and the county government. Subsequently, the white-to-black ratio in the county and the schools altered. Through advocacy efforts of teachers, concerned residents, and students, the elective programs in Prince George's County Public Schools were twice spared from elimination, in 1982 and again in 1991. Music education remains an active part of the Prince George's County School curriculum due in part to the work of Battle, Allison, and Pickard, music educators who displayed creativity in the face of adversity. They set an example for other educators of how to produce, maintain, and support quality-performing groups in music education.