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open access

Eak Tai Ahn's Korea Fantasy: His Life, Historical Context, and Compositional Style

Description: Eak Tai Ahn is not only the first generation of Korean musicians, composers and conductors to have studied Western music and given successful musical performances in Western countries, but also is among the first to introduce the music of Korea to the West utilizing the Western music system. Korea Fantasy is an important work that helped Ahn win international acclaim. Korea Fantasy is an orchestral piece that evolved along with Ahn's unique life experiences shaped by the state of his native cou… more
Date: May 2019
Creator: Baek, Da Mi
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Visual Music: The Use of Film Composition Devices to Develop Form in the Wind Band Music of Bruce Broughton

Description: As a film composer, Bruce Broughton uses themes, motives, gestures, tropes, and other film composition devices; however, he is also able to develop them into compelling formal structures through the use of film composition techniques in his concert music. Traditional musical form is not necessarily applicable to film music. The film dictates the pacing and structure, whereas concert music allows for the creation of form and more complex musical development. Through his extensive experience comp… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Blasko, Benjamen
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Structural Pitch Collections in Jaakko Mäntyjärvi's "Richte mich, Gott"

Description: ‘Richte mich, Gott' exemplifies Jaakko Mäntyjärvi's pluralistic compositional approach through an interlaced organization of tonal and non-tonal pitch content. The development of ideas in the text of Psalm 43 and the concluding doxology is depicted across both layers of pitch organization and governed by specific structural pitch collections: (0145) and (0257). Moreover, the organic transformation of these structural pitch collections' intervallic content emerges as a fundamental means of progr… more
Date: December 2021
Creator: Botha, Charlotte
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Sacred Sound at the Symphony: A Conductor's Guide to Faith Traditions in Choral-Orchestral Repertoire

Description: Since most historical composers of Western art music were European Christians (or resided in areas that were primarily populated by Christians), a vast majority of the sacred choral-orchestral repertoire is based on major figures and themes from the most prominent denominations, including Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Anglicanism. As a corollary this is also the case for analytical, pedagogical, and exegetical literature related to the topic. However, in the late nineteenth century some compo… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Bott, Robert (Conductor)
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

William Duckworth's "Southern Harmony": A Comprehensive Exploration into the Synthesis of Two Archetypal American Genres

Description: In his Southern Harmony collection, William Duckworth extracts existing material from shape-note hymns found in William Walker's 1835 publication A Southern Harmony and Musical Companion. He then applies minimalist and postminimalist processes to this material to create innovation choral compositions. This document provides a comprehensive analysis of the methods used to construct all twenty works in Duckworth's collection by tracing the extracted source material through the fabric of the new c… more
Date: May 2023
Creator: Boyd, Jordan D.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Conductor's Guide to the Choral Music of Joshua Rist

Description: Composed exclusively in the last decade, Joshua Rist's works have received significant performances by numerous high-profile ensembles including prominent high school, collegiate, and community choirs. Although conductors continue to program his works with increased frequency, minimal scholarly work is published about this music and its composer. The quality of Rist's body of work coupled with a scarcity of scholarly research provides opportunity for further study. Closer examination of Rist's … more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Brown, Joshua R. (Joshua Ray)
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

New TEKS Health Standards: Awareness, Perceived Knowledge, and Perceived Competency among Choral Music Educators in Texas

Description: In this study, I examined the awareness, perceptions of required knowledge, and perceived competency of Texas secondary choral music educators concerning the new musician health objectives included in the revised Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards (TEKS). A secondary purpose of this study was to identify the activities and variables that promote the development of these characteristics and prepare educators to address the standards in their instruction. Using a researcher-designed w… more
Date: August 2021
Creator: Burrows, Gideon C.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Choral Music of Elaine Hagenberg: From Process to Product to Performance

Description: The Choral Music of Elaine Hagenberg explores the oeuvre of composer Elaine Hagenberg through a musicological, qualitative, and performance-based analysis of her compositional style that has led to her increasing acclaim. This study serves as the first primary source of scholarly output on her. Through an examination of her musical background as a pianist and choral educator, one can identify her principal sources of musical inspiration: text, nature, and her faith. Shaped by these experiences,… more
Date: December 2021
Creator: Cathlina, Francis
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Michael Daugherty's Mount Rushmore: Analysis and Conductor's Guide

Description: According to the American League of Orchestras' most recent report, Michael Daugherty is one of the ten most performed American composers of concert music in modern times. He has received six GRAMMY awards, including awards for Best Contemporary Classical Composition in 2011 and 2017. Characteristics of Daugherty's music are diverse: colliding tonalities and blocks of sound, driving polyrhythmic counterpoint, and jazz and pop elements. His music can be minimalistic at times and at others, stirr… more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Deignan, Ryan
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Fence, Flavor, and Phantasm: Balancing Japanese Musical Elements and Western Influence within an Historical and Cultural Context

Description: Given the diversity found in today's Japanese culture and the size of the country's population, it is easy to see why the understanding of Japanese wind band repertoire must be multi-faceted. Alongside Western elements, many Japanese composers have intentionally sought to maintain their cultural identity through the addition of Japanese musical elements or concepts. These added elements provide a historical and cultural context from which to frame a composition or, in some cases, a composer's c… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Desjardins, Kelly
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Social Consciousness in Wind Band Music of the Early 21st Century, Represented through a Study of Three Wind Band Works: Symphony No. 2-Migration by Adam Schoenberg, Silver Lining-Concerto for Flute and Wind Ensemble by Frank Ticheli, and Of Our New Day Begun by Omar Thomas

Description: The wind band provides an outlet for composers to use their platform to reach performers, enlighten audiences, and heal communities. This document is an analysis of three composers' approach to incorporate social consciousness in their wind band music. Adam Schoenberg, Omar Thomas, and Frank Ticheli work with specific social justice issues to respond to specific events, allowing them to reach and empower performers and audiences, to heal, thrive and build past these events. The chapters contain… more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Eaddy, Jack A., Jr.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Four Evening Service Settings of Joel Martinson: An American's Contribution to Anglican Evensong Repertoire

Description: The Evening Service settings of great British composers like Charles Stanford, A. Herbert Brewer, Charles Wood and Herbert Howells are well known and performed often throughout the world. However, little is known about the body of settings created by American composers. There are currently approximately 75 American composers dating from 1890 to the present, with Evening Service settings in print. Joel Martinson, based in Dallas, Texas, is an American composer, church musician, concert organist,… more
Date: May 2019
Creator: Gordon, Gary (Gary Adrian)
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Themes of Social Justice in the Choral Music of Jake Runestad

Description: With his thought-provoking and socially relevant music, American composer Jake Runestad has quickly become one of the most performed choral composers of the 21st century. Although music and social justice have been tied together for centuries, there is a new movement bringing social justice to American choral music in a noticeably increased manor, and Jake Runestad is a leading composer in this movement. In this paper, I provide a detailed analysis into the social justice themes employed by Run… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Hathaway, Christopher M.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Johannes Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem: A Comparison of the Reduced Orchestration Techniques in Joachim Linckelmann's Chamber Ensemble Version to Brahms's Four-Hand Piano Version

Description: Recognizing the challenges small groups have to program a major work, in 2010, Joachim Linckelmann created a chamber ensemble arrangement of Johannes Brahms's "Ein deutsches Requiem." In 1869, J.M. Reiter-Biedermann published Brahms's four-hand piano arrangement of "Ein deutsches Requiem." Brahms's arrangement serves as an excellent comparison to the chamber ensemble version by Linckelmann, since it can be assumed that Brahms chose to highlight and focus on the parts he deemed the most importan… more
Date: December 2016
Creator: Hawley, Aaron (Michael Aaron)
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

William Byrd's Motet "Tristitia et anxietas" through Elizabethan Eyes: Performance Practice based on an Examination of Sixteenth-Century Sources

Description: By considering sixteenth-century English chorister training, modern singers of Renaissance vocal music are informed of the practical and academic demands unique to Elizabethan musicians and audiences. Clauses in relevant choirmaster contracts provide an insight into pedagogical expectations of teachers and their choristers. Studies included plainchant, grammar, Latin, rhetoric, improvisation, poetry, morality, instrumental instruction on organ and viols, and composition. For those not associate… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Irving, John (John Wells)
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Conductor's Guide to Harrison Birtwistle's Entr'actes and Sappho Fragments

Description: Entr'actes and Sappho Fragments (1964) by English Composer Harrison Birtwistle represent extended notation, complex meters, and extended instrumental techniques. After World War II, the style and techniques of musical composition evolved considerably and musical trends began to continuously change. Conducting contemporary compositions requires new approaches in conducting methods. This paper examines a) introduce important elements of Birtwistle's compositions in the 1960, b) include an updated… more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Jang, Hyeyoun
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Re-Unification of Dr. Edwin Fissinger's Prairie Scenes: A Choral Cycle

Description: Edwin Fissinger (1920-1990) was a conductor and prolific choral composer. His compositional techniques, settings of text, jazz-influenced harmonies, and melodic propulsion fulfill an important role in each of his compositions. In the eight choral cycles he composed, Fissinger unified each cycle through thematic and textual elements. Although this resulted in a logical progression of poetry and music, Fissinger's final choral cycle, Prairie Scenes, was not published as he intended. Rather, indiv… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Jilek, Dean
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Sven-David Sandström's Matthäuspassion: Examining J.S. Bach's Influence and Sandström's Compositional Language, Use of Symbolism, and Religious and Spiritual Motivations

Description: Beginning with his High Mass written in 1994, popular Swedish composer Sven-David Sandström modeled multiple compositions after famous canonical works using the same texts and/or instrumentation. Sandström wants to be compared to the greatest, specifically in how a twenty-first century composer responds to a text set , in the case of J.S. Bach's , over 250 years ago. His setting of Matthäuspassion (MP), which uses the same libretto as J.S. Bach, is his most extensive non-operatic work, one he c… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Jilek, Dwight
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Rediscovering James Robert Gillette's Vistas

Description: James Robert Gillette (1886-1963) was an early advocate for original wind band music at a time when marches and band transcriptions of orchestral music contributed heavily to the wind band repertoire. Primarily known as an influential, in-demand organist and composer, Gillette became the director of the Carleton College band program in Northfield, Minnesota in 1924. Taking an innovative approach to building, organizing, and programming, Gillette transformed that group into the Carleton Symphony… more
Date: December 2017
Creator: Kitelinger, Jennifer
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Paul Robert Fauchet's Symphony in B-flat: A Performance Edition for Modern Wind Band Instrumentation

Description: Paul Robert Fauchet's Symphonie pour Musique d'Harmonie, known in the United States as Symphony in B-flat, is a four-movement composition spanning nearly thirty minutes in length and written in the style of the late romantic composers. Despite its place as one of the first symphonies for wind band, a performance of the piece that represents the composer's 1926 orchestration is difficult due to the inclusion of instruments that are no longer in common practice, including bugles, alto horns, and … more
Date: May 2016
Creator: Kitelinger, Shannon
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Liszt's Portrayal of Goethe's Faust Using Flat 6th Scale Degree as Harmonic Organizing Principle in the Faust Movement from His Faust Symphony

Description: Franz Liszt's Faust Symphony has suffered neglect since its premiere in 1857. The analysis in this study aims to clarify some of the misunderstandings which have led to this neglect, particularly concerning Liszt's formal structure and character portrayal. In the Faust movement, the flat 6th scale degree (♭6) plays a prominent role in harmonic organization. Nineteenth-century composers sometimes used the distinct sonic color of chromatic-third progressions, as Liszt does here between C and E ra… more
Date: May 2019
Creator: Li, Chao (Conductor)
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Performance Guide to Se Enkhbayar's Choral Tone Poem Önchin Botog (A Lonely Baby Camel) for SATB Soloists and SATB Chorus (with Divisions) A Cappella

Description: Se Enkhbayar (b. 1956) is one of the most important contemporary Mongolian composers in China. His choral tone poem, Önchin Botog, integrates the traditional Mongolian musical elements Urtiin Duu (long song) and Khöömii (throat singing) with modern choral music and is one of the most representative works in the genre of modern Mongolian choral music. The purpose of this study is to provide a performance guidance for non-Mongolian musicians on Se Enkhbayar's work, Önchin Botog, by presenting his… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Lin, Pei-Chi
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Impact of American Conductors on the Development of Japanese Wind Band Repertoire as Evidenced in the Programming of Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra, Musashino Academia Musicae, Showa Academia Musicae, Senzoku Gakuen School of Music, and Tokyo University of the Arts

Description: The wind bands in Japan are considered by many scholars and wind band conductors to be among some of the finest ensembles in today's wind ensemble medium. The literature and repertoire of Japanese ensembles have evolved from orchestral transcriptions, patriotic music, and military marches to original compositions by European, American, and Japanese composers. British conductor Timothy Reynish states that Japanese wind band music has looked traditionally towards the United States and occasionall… more
Date: December 2018
Creator: Lo, Albert
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Orchestral Excerpts for Conductors

Description: "Orchestral Excerpts for Conductors" is a compilation of sixty-five full score excerpts from the orchestral repertory arranged for string quartet and piano. The purpose of this collection is to provide conducting students with a pedagogical resource for learning how to handle technically challenging excerpts in orchestral music. This dissertation serves as a plan for the final publication of the excerpts book; while it includes the full score excerpts, it does not include the arrangements for s… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Morel, Jessica
Partner: UNT Libraries
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