Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
This paper is the culmination of my creative project for graduation from Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University. The creative portion of the project consisted of researching Québécois (or French-Canadian) composers and specifically finding music for flute and piano. I wished to find pieces that could prove valuable…
This paper is the culmination of my creative project for graduation from Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University. The creative portion of the project consisted of researching Québécois (or French-Canadian) composers and specifically finding music for flute and piano. I wished to find pieces that could prove valuable in expanding the standard flute repertoire. My goal with this project was to shed light on some fairly unknown and certainly under-played pieces for flute and piano by French-Canadian composers and learn those pieces for my senior recital on March 2, 2020. This summary of the research experience and the process of recital preparation is intended to be a guide for flutists who may work on these pieces in the future and musicians on any instrument who take on a similar project of introducing new pieces to their instrument’s existing repertory.
The first women who performed in orchestral settings were harpists who were substitute or extra players specifically hired for works requiring harp, such as Gustav Mahler’s symphonies or Maurice Ravel’s La Valse (c. 1919). It was not until flutist Doriot Anthony Dwyer won the principal flute position in the BSO…
The first women who performed in orchestral settings were harpists who were substitute or extra players specifically hired for works requiring harp, such as Gustav Mahler’s symphonies or Maurice Ravel’s La Valse (c. 1919). It was not until flutist Doriot Anthony Dwyer won the principal flute position in the BSO in 1952 that a woman was hired as a principal player of a major US orchestra. Following Dwyer’s lead, more women slowly earned their acceptance in professional orchestras. Focusing on the time period 1920-1950, three of the first pioneers who gained acceptance into American orchestras and were the first female orchestral players were flutists Doriot Anthony Dwyer, Lois Schaefer, and Frances Blaisdell. These women lived extraordinary lives and have inspired many generations of female flutists to continue in their footsteps pursuing their own orchestral and professional solo careers. One significant factor for the eventual increase of female musicians in the modern orchestra was the establishment of blind auditions. A blind audition is where a player performs behind a screen for an audition committee to preserve anonymity. Screens can be made of heavy cloth or a room divider that separates the player from the panel of orchestra members critiquing potential hires. This can often include the music director and other musicians. The screen conceals each player’s identity and allows the panel to focus their listening on how a candidate actually sounds versus how they may look and act while playing. Limiting stimuli to aural perception would help to mitigate bias or prejudice against race, gender, or age through the audition process.
