College of Arts & Humanities
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/1611
The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.
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Item The Oompah-pulor Tuba: An examination and pedagogical approach to incorporating popular and commercial music elements in solo tuba literature(2022) Ambrose, Samuel Ryan; Votta, Michael; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation traces the history of writing for the tuba in a variety of musical realmsand examines pedagogical approaches to studying the instrument in an attempt to create more works and solo performance opportunities, specifically through a lens of popular and commercial music. The recorded project features a sample of works for solo tuba featuring various elements of popular and commercial music. The recorded selections include works written for tuba and adapted for tuba, all specifically arranged to encompass a particular popular or commercial style and sound. All arrangements are original to this project and adhere to the proposed model for inclusion of musical elements that performers and educators can implement in their studies, as well as their pedagogical justifications.Item AN EXPLORATORY CASE STUDY OF THREE RURAL ELEMENTARY MUSIC TEACHERS(2020) Fernsler, Stephanie; Hewitt, Michael; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this exploratory case study was to examine the experiences and perspectives of three rural elementary music teachers. The study explored rural elementary music teachers’ attitudes, perceptions, and opinions about their current music programs. After collecting survey data from three rural elementary music teachers, results indicated similar and different experiences and perspectives of teaching in a rural elementary school, with effective communication, community support and creative implementation being similar experiences. These findings may contribute towards rural elementary music teachers’ voices being heard in the music community and inspire other rural music teachers to contribute to music education.Item City of Hope and the 1968 Poor People's Campaign: Poverty, Protests, and Photography(2017) Bryant, Aaron E; Sies, Mary Corbin; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Scholars have produced rich materials on the civil rights movement since Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968. These resources generally offer the familiar narratives of the period, as they relate to King’s earlier campaigns as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). This includes research on demonstrations in Alabama, Mississippi, Washington, and Memphis. Few studies offer insights on King’s final crusade, the Poor People’s Campaign, however. As an original contribution to civil rights research, the following study offers an overview of King’s antipoverty crusade to contextualize the movement’s impact on America’s past and present. This study presents new insights on the movement by introducing previously undiscovered and unexamined archival materials related to the campaign and Resurrection City, the encampment between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial that housed campaign participants. Photographs, architectural drawings, and other visual materials supplement evidence collected from primary documents and other archival sources. While the investigation of written records and printed materials helps the study construct a chronology of events to frame a historical narrative of the campaign, graphic materials presented in the study add eyewitness perspectives and visual evidence to help shape the study’s conclusions. Perceptions of the Poor People’s Campaign were unfavorable as media coverage fed national fears of riots and civil disorder. Additionally, national memory recorded the efforts of the campaign’s leadership as inadequate in filling the void left by King’s assassination. King’s antipoverty campaign, however, had its merits. It was a microscope on poverty and a critique that focused public attention on poverty nationwide. It was a catalyst to important federal and grassroots programs that laid the groundwork for later legislation and social change. The campaign was also a precursor to subsequent civil and human rights movements. In addition to bringing social concerns related to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic justice to the public fore, King’s antipoverty crusade introduced age, gender, and quality-of-life issues to a national discourse on equality. Additionally, the campaign represented a change in sociopolitical activism as protest movements shifted from civil rights to human rights campaigns. Equally important, however, the campaign was the final chapter of King’s life and, conceivably, his most ambitious dream.Item VOICING THE UNHEARD: GENDERED PRACTICES, DISCOURSES, AND STRUGGLES OF GUGAK MUSICIANS IN SOUTH KOREA(2018) Yeo, Hyunjin; Witzleben, John L.; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation investigates how individual musicians’ experiences and gender identity are shaped by interacting with cultural ideals of gender roles in different levels of South Korean society and the ways in which they interact with gendered performances of music. In the last few years, gender has been a popular topic not only in academia but also in everyday conversations in South Korea. Traditional gender norms have been challenged, and various types of masculinities and femininities have emerged. As different ideas of gender roles coexist in society, gugak (literally “national music”) musicians, too, face challenges in the middle of social transition. This study aims to deliver the often unheard voices of two groups of musicians: male gayageum (Korean zither) players playing a “women’s instrument” and female fusion gugak musicians playing “cheap” music. Based on in-depth interviews and my eighteen years’ involvement in the gugak field, I examine how both groups of musicians negotiate conflicts as they face contrasting gender norms and values between the gugak community and South Korean society at large. In this process, their performance becomes the prime site where their ideas of masculinity and femininity are put on display. By playing particular instruments and styles of music, defying negative discourses on them, and demonstrating their competence, I argue that performances and narratives of the musicians ultimately complicate the hegemonic views of masculinity and femininity. By revealing untold stories of the often unheard groups of musicians, this dissertation sheds light on studies concerning what has been excluded from scholarly discussions, which will provide a more comprehensive picture of individual actors and communities in society. This work also contributes to studies on the complex interplay between individual actors, diverse ideas of gender, and performance.Item FROM MÚSICA DE CARRILERA TO CORRIDOS PROHIBIDOS AND NORTEÑA: MOBILITY, MEANING, WAR, AND THE RECONTEXTUALIZATION OF MEXICAN MUSICAL STYLES IN COLOMBIA(2017) Vergara, Patricia; Rios, Fernando; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation analyses the adoption and multiple layers of recontextualization of Mexican musical styles in Colombia since the 1930s, particularly música norteña and corridos, story-songs that narrate current events perceived by listeners to be “the pure truth” about the Colombian conflict involving insurgent guerrillas, paramilitary squads, military officials, and drug traffickers that plagued the country for nearly six decades. The dissertation analyses the processes of music production, circulation, and reception that enabled the rise of a Colombian genre family of Mexican-inspired musical practices that thrives today, in spite of being dismissed by the Colombian culture industries for their supposed lack of artistic value and authenticity. Through a historic and spatial perspective this study examines long-standing rhetorics of class and race difference in Colombia, from the nineteenth-century elite’s conceptions of nation, modernity, and civilization to the project of multiculturalism that currently undergirds Colombia’s peace and nation building efforts. It highlights how these enduring discourses have been implicated in the disenfranchisement of both the participants and the musical practices that are the subject of this study. A boom in the production of corridos in Colombia coincided with the intensification of the conflict throughout the 1990s. Named “corridos prohibidos” (forbidden corridos), the production and distribution of these compositions has since relied on the informal economy, since they continue to be shunned by Colombian mass media channels. The political economy of corridos prohibidos thus provides an apt case study of how contemporary musicians and audiences have forged relationships with musical piracy that they view as a beneficial partnership, differing drastically from the attitudes of the traditional recording music industry and its professionals. This dissertation presents the current practices of corridos prohibidos and Colombian música norteña as vibrant spheres of cultural production from which participants derive a range of meanings and ways to mediate their lived experiences of violence and disenfranchisement, as well as pleasure and respite.Item Contrasts: Quartets and Art Songs of the Nineteenth Century(2016) Brown, Elizabeth Lillian; Sloan, Rita; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The nineteenth-century Romantic era saw the development and expansion of many vocal and instrumental forms that had originated in the Classical era. In particular, the German lied and French mélodie matured as art forms, and they found a kind of equilibrium between piano and vocal lines. Similarly, the nineteenth-century piano quartet came into its own as a form of true chamber music in which all instruments participated equally in the texture. Composers such as Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, and Gabriel Fauré offer particularly successful examples of both art song and piano quartets that represent these genres at their highest level of artistic complexity. Their works have become the cornerstones of the modern collaborative pianist’s repertoire. My dissertation explored both the art songs and the piano quartets of these three composers and studied the different skills needed by a pianist performing both types of works. This project included the following art song cycles: Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe, Gabriel Fauré’s Poème d’un Jour, and Johannes Brahms’ Zigeunerlieder. I also performed Schumann’s Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 47, Fauré’s Piano Quartet in C minor, Op. 15, and Brahms’ Piano Quartet in G minor, Op. 25. My collaborators included: Zachariah Matteson, violin and viola; Kristin Bakkegard, violin; Molly Jones, cello; Geoffrey Manyin, cello; Karl Mitze, viola; Emily Riggs, soprano, and Matthew Hill, tenor. This repertoire was presented over the course of three recitals on February 13, 2015, December 11, 2015, March 25, 2016 at the University of Maryland’s Gildenhorn Recital Hall. These recitals can be found in the Digital Repository at the University of Maryland (DRUM).Item NEW PERSPECTIVES: TRANSCRIPTIONS FOR VIOLA(2016) Hodges, Nicholas John; Stern, James; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)One must only glance upon Franz Zeyringer’s 400-page, exhaustive Literatur für Viola to understand the error of the familiar but casual criticism of the paucity of the viola catalogue. Examining Zeyringer’s resource, however, we find a trend: while the viola repertoire contains many pieces (over 14,000 works) and does lay claim to many masterworks (Bartok’s Viola Concerto, Hindemith’s Sonatas, Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, etc.), many of the pieces originally written for the instrument are not widely recognized compositions and not often considered outstanding achievements. The violist, much like the double-bassist, bassoonist, and hornist, faces a certain challenge when selecting repertoire for a recital: a lack of large, important works that both fit the instrument and challenge the recitalist. This project will aim to expand recital repertoire for the viola through the development of new transcriptions, using the previously transcribed Fantasy Pieces by Schumann (trans. Leonard Davis) and Sonata No. 2 in E-flat, Op. 120 by Brahms (trans. Brahms) as an inspiration and guide. As a result, the catalogue of viola repertoire will not only be increased but the difference in tone and depth of the instrument may unveil previously unnoticed perspectives on the works. With a primary aim to expand the literature of the viola through the development of new transcriptions, this project will also strive to offer new, previously unnoticed perspectives on preexisting works. Through the changing of the instrumentation, listeners and performers will have the opportunity to explore the character of the compositions in a fresh and possibly illuminating way. Perhaps this project will encourage previously unexplored transcriptions to be realized and performed. While the recital repertoire for the viola boasts many and great works, the original transcriptions of this project attempt to infuse the collection with new and interesting possibilities for both study and performance. This dissertation project is comprised of three recitals featuring works transcribed for viola and, in most cases, newly transcribed by myself. All events took place on the campus of University of Maryland, College Park: Recital #1 on November 9, 2014 in the Gildenhorn Recital Hall of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center; Recital #2 on May 9, 2015, in Ulrich Recital Hall; and Recital #3 on November 6, 2015, in the Gildenhorn Recital Hall. Item "Says Kabir": Unbounded Sounds(2014) McCall, Maressa B.; Witzleben, J. Lawrence; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Kabir, the weaver-poet, has continued to permeate many facets of Indian society since his life in the fifteenth century. The poetry attributed to him is a large body of work existing in oral, print, recording, and other forms that encompasses much more today than what Kabir said in his lifetime. Between the biting social criticisms and intimate devotional messages, the poetry bridges many ideological gaps, ensuring its longevity. Through fieldwork across India, I came to understand Kabir as a musical tradition, rooted in poetry, that continually renews its sonic character to speak to new generations while maintaining a heterogeneous variety of styles (folk, classical, semi-classical, and more). Predominantly studied previously as a text-based tradition, a focus on the range of musical styles and content that Kabir encompasses enables us to understand its popularity across religious, socioeconomic, and generational divisions and provides insights into Kabir's place in today's North Indian society.Item A Century of American Solo Trumpet Music(2014) McNamara, Anne Kovarik; Gekker, Chris; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)As a perpetual student of the trumpet's history, pedagogy, and literature, I always try to find new resources and pieces to learn in order to effectively perform and teach at a high level. My dissertation focuses on major American works for the instrument. Through my selection of characteristic repertoire, I explore pieces that provide landmark examples of the evolution of American trumpet music. The organization of my recitals is chronological. My first recital features music from the early twentieth century (1912-1951), the second features music from the middle of the twentieth century (1956-1988), and the third features music from the late twentieth century to the present (1992-2013). My dissertation includes music other than pieces for solo trumpet and piano. While six of my pieces are for this instrumentation, one is for cornet and piano (originally for cornet and band), one is for flugelhorn and piano, five are chamber works involving various instrument combinations including strings and percussion, one is for unaccompanied trumpet and one is for unaccompanied flugelhorn. Performance and careful analysis of these works reveal certain trends in American trumpet music of the past century. Many of the pieces included here contain elements of jazz such as ragtime rhythms, wa wa effects, and stylistic inflections. Other pieces show a strong influence from Aaron Copland's compositional style. His penchant for quartal and quintal harmony has become synonymous with the American sound; other composers such as Halsey Stevens, Kent Kennan, Eric Ewazen, and Jim Stephenson have used similar musical material in the works I have selected.Item Sources for the Reevaluation of George Frederick Root's Career: The Autobiography & A Secular Cantata(2013) Brown, Caitlin Elizabeth; Warfield, Patrick R; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Music scholarship has failed to fully assess the impact of the American composer George Frederick Root beyond his work in the church, classroom, and home. Most famous for composing "The Battle Cry of Freedom" and acting as music education pioneer Lowell Mason's associate, Root's other contributions to American music are often overlooked, particularly his body of secular cantatas for amateur choirs. This paper examines the commonly relayed biography of Root, Root's place in American historiography, and the advantages of examining his own autobiography. Finally, this paper presents a case study of The Haymakers and its possible place in future studies of Root. By better examining his career, we see that George Frederick Root was a typical nineteenth-century American man and that he was also a composer notable for his ability to serve the musical needs of his audience. Root pioneered large-scale choral works targeted at amateur performers with his secular cantatas and, consequently, served a wider swath of American performers and listeners.
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