Music
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2265
Browse
6 results
Search Results
Item FOLKLIFE, TRADITIONS, AND NATIONALISM: INFLUENCES ON WESTERN CLASSICAL MUSIC(2021) Hunter, Thomas; Sloan, Rita; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation performance project seeks to feature music written for the classical concert setting that is inspired by, directly references, or highlights specific and unique aspects of a particular country, culture, tradition, or heritage, that fall outside of typical western classical music. This may present as an arrangement of a folk song, the use or quotation of a distinct folksong melody or popular dance rhythm, an allusion to a piece of folk lore, the inclusion of nationalistic idioms, or mimicked instrumentation.I wish to demonstrate the impact and fascination many composers had with their own roots or those of another country, and the effect that it had on their music. I suggest that classical music conceived with this perspective has the potential to be particularly gripping. It has a wonderful ability to feel ancient, familiar, and new all at the same time, and can create a meaningful connection to the past while remaining deeply satisfying, intensely modern, and culturally relevant. In an effort to explore the legacy of this sort of music and the work of composers who found it arresting, I developed three concert programs during which I played music composed with some form of distinct folk, cultural, or nationalist influence. I primarily focused on music of the 20th century with a particular emphasis on American and English music, but by the end of the project, I visited America, England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Hungary, Romania, France, Greece, Argentina, Slovakia, and Israel and commissioned a local composer to write a piece that was featured at the last concert.Item CHASING THE SINGERS: THE TRANSITION OF LONG-SONG (URTYN DUU) IN POST-SOCIALIST MONGOLIA(2011) Yoon, Sunmin; Provine, Robert C.; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Long-song (Urtyn duu) is a prominent Mongolian traditional folk song genre that survived throughout the socialist period (1921-1990) and throughout the political transformation of Mongolia from socialism to democratic capitalism after the Soviet Union was dismantled and terminated its aid to Mongolia in 1990. This dissertation, based on research conducted from 2006 to 2010, presents and investigates the traces of singers' stories and memories of their lives, songs, and singing, through the lens of the discourse on change and continuity in, and as, folk tradition. During the socialist period, this genre was first considered backward, and was then subtly transformed into an urban national style, with the formation of a boundary between professionalism and amateurism among long-song singers and with selective performance of certain songs and styles. This boundary was associated with politics and ideology and might be thought to have ended when the society entered its post-socialist period. However, the long-song genre continued to play a political role, with different kinds of political meaning one the one hand and only slight musical modification on the other. It was now used to present a more nostalgic and authentic new Mongolian identity in the post-socialist free market. Through my investigation, I argue that the historical transition of Mongolia encompassed not merely political or economic shifts, but also a deeper transformation that resulted in new cultural forms. Long-song provides a good case study of the complicated process of this cultural change.Item ARAB MUSICIANS IN WASHINGTON, D.C. AREA: ETHNICITY AND IDENTITY(2011) Campo-Abdoun, Christina Karen; Witzleben, John L; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Musicians living in the Arab Diaspora around the Washington, D.C. metro area are a small group of multi-faceted individuals with significant contributions and intentions to propagate and disseminate their music. Various levels of identity are discussed and analyzed, including self-identity, group/ collective identity, and Arab ethnic identity. The performance and negotiation of Arab ethnic identity is apparent in selected repertoire, instrumentation, musical style, technique and expression, shared conversations about music, worldview on Arabic music and its future. For some musicians, further evidence of self-construction of one's ethnic identity entails choice of name, costume, and venue. Research completed is based on fieldwork, observations, participant-observations, interviews, and communications by phone and email. This thesis introduces concepts of Arabic music, discusses recent literature, reveals findings from case studies on individual Arab musicians and venues, and analyzes Arab identity and ethnicity in relation to particular definitions of identity found in anthropological and ethnomusicological writings. Musical lyrics, translations, transcriptions, quotes, discussions, analyses, as well as charts and diagrams of self-identity analyses are provided as evidence of the performance and negotiation of Arab identity.Item A Confluence of Streams: Music and Identity in Aotearoa/New Zealand(2008-06-01) Anderson, Harold Atwood; Dueck, Jonathan; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation explores identity and musical performance in New Zealand. I investigate how music and performance play a part in the formation of persistent identities -- how momentary activities metamorphose into more fixed "traditional" practices, and how music impacts collective definition of group identity. I define "persistent identities" as those that continue despite changes in place, time and life stage. In musical performances, repertoires and canons, we witness the formation of "new" identities: mutations, exten¬sions, or adaptations of traditional identities in response to changing circumstances. I theorize connections between traditional and contemporary practices as expressions of functional or processual persistence. New Zealand's bicultural framework (formed between indigenous Māori and descendants of their European counterparts) forms an appropriate site for formation of new identities. The country comprises a manageable geographic area for application of a hybrid ethno¬graphic/social-historical method, and its political structure affords a high level of visi¬bility, empowerment, and "ownership," particularly for Pacific immigrants by allow¬ing them to retain a sense of "indigeneity." The situation is not as sanguine for other groups, including refugees and Asian migrants who also aspire to a common nationhood while retaining traditional identities. The extent to which groups succeed or fail is visible in their use of music to achieve a place in public discourse. Māori contemporary music and performance practices including Powhiri (ritual encoun¬ter), Haka (a dance form widely practiced by both Māori and non-Māori), and Taonga Pūoro (traditional instruments and practice, thought extinct but now the subject of a cultur¬ally contested recovery) stand out as sites where diverse groups participate and negotiate identities. I parse performances ethnographically by analyzing choice and usage of materials (idioms, genres, repertoires, etc.), and audience makeup, reception and interaction.Item "Alan Lomax's iPod?": Smithsonian Global Sound and Applied Ethnomusicology on the Internet(2007-05-08) Font, David Octaviano; Dueck, Jonathan; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The phenomenon of digital music on the Internet marks a turning point in the way human beings make, listen to, and share music. Smithsonian Global Sound is, variously: 1) a digital music download service; 2) the central hub of a network of digital music archives; and 3) the Internet branch of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. Like all things vital, Smithsonian Global Sound is also developing rapidly. This thesis synthesizes a brief history of the Smithsonian Global Sound project, explores some of the vital issues related to the project, and offers a series of observations and recommendations for the project's development. Tracing the roots of Smithsonian Global Sound back to early archival efforts by music scholars, Moses Asch's Folkways Records, the acquisition of the Folkways catalog by the Smithsonian, and the development and launch of Smithsonian Global Sound, the project is examined as a example of applied ethnomusicology on the Internet.Item Giving Voice to the Forgotten: An Examination of the Music and Culture of Veljo Tormis's "Forgotten Peoples" Collection(2006-04-11) Jones, Erik Reid; Maclary, Ed; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Veljo Tormis's development as a composer was influenced by the political climate in which he was raised. He was born into a flowering and independent Estonia, with a parliamentary system of government and a people developing their own sense of individual culture after winning independence from Russia in 1920. Unfortunately, when Tormis was ten years old, this national independence and stability fell apart. Estonia would not regain its independence until 1991, when Tormis was 61. This combination of foreign occupying powers would have a significant impact on Tormis's musical life and direction. That a people can be subsumed into a larger population might have been one of the driving factors that led Tormis to go beyond Estonia and study the music of the ancient cultures that surround his homeland. These Baltic Finns include (by his definition) the peoples surrounding the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Riga, and the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. This includes Latvia, Estonia, some of far western Russia and portions of southern and eastern Finland. Out of these explorations came six cycles of a cappella choral music set to the music and languages of mostly dying cultures, in a collection called "Forgotten Peoples". This purpose of this project is to make the "Forgotten Peoples" collection more accessible to performers and listeners. First we will examine the history, culture, and language of the six different peoples, especially among those areas where they share commonalities. Next, we will do a lyrical analysis of the pieces, pointing out stylistic traits that are common in Balto-Finnic poetry. Finally, we will take an analytical look at the construction of many of the movements in the "Forgotten Peoples" collection.