Matching Items (5)
Filtering by
- Creators: Buck, Elizabeth
- Creators: Caslor, Jason
Description
Ruth Gipps was an English composer, performer, and conductor whose unique experiences and opinions shaped her compositional output and the musical world around her. Gipps was a conflicted individual throughout her life, facing challenges as an outsider in almost every area of her professional life: child prodigy turned adult musician, outspoken conservative English composer positioned against a new international style, and woman in a male-dominated space as an orchestral performer and conductor. Perhaps as a result of her many struggles, she developed internal dissonances between her beliefs, her words, and her actions. These inner conflicts, manifesting in her musical voice as well as her work as a conductor, greatly impacted her career and oeuvre. Despite her inner turmoil, Gipps was always passionately and unapologetically expressive of her personality and beliefs, refusing to compromise or change her behavior even when it negatively impacted her reputation and opportunities. It was this intensity and dedication that enabled her to positively impact musicians in her life, whom she deeply cared about, and to communicate with performers and listeners of her compositions. This document reviews the literature about Gipps, which includes two books by Jill Halstead as well as several dissertations. Information from these sources directly addressing Gipps as well as other pertinent literature is used to explore the disconnects and conflicts that characterized Gipps’s life and music. A discussion of four of Gipps’s oboe family works, Kensington Gardens Suite, op. 2 (1938), The Piper of Dreams, op. 12b (1940), Oboe Concerto in D minor, op. 20 (1941), and Threnody, op. 74 (1990), relates these impactful conflicts to Gipps’s unique musical voice and her contributions to oboe repertoire.
ContributorsDeMouy, Laura Anne (Author) / Schuring, Martin (Thesis advisor) / Norton, Kay (Committee member) / Buck, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
This document serves as a comprehensive project centering on a new performing edition of Pierre Danican Philidor’s (1681-1731) Trio Suite No. 2 in E Minor of 1722, one of a collection of six trio suites presented to the French court, following a series of earlier, more well-known suites (1716-1718). The project itself contains a performance edition with a fully realized harpsichord part, a recording featuring entirely modern instruments in modern pitch with a special attention to period affect and style, and finally a written document contextualizing the Philidor family, the French court establishment, and helpful performance practice guidelines for musicians. The purpose of this project is: to both bring to light and make accessible the music of this member of the Philidor clan, to encourage a greater understanding of this family and their musical place in the French establishment, and to build a bridge between the specialization of Historically Informed Performance (HIP) and the modern instrumentalist, particularly conservatory students and professionals unfamiliar or uncomfortable with this material. Ideally, the result will be more frequent programming of French court chamber repertoire such as this work in non-specialist settings and venues. Such programming goals should not detract from HIP and the period instrument field, but rather help this music to expand in interest across a wider classical music audience, and thus by extension also expand interest in the historical performance movement.
ContributorsJohnson, Michael (Author) / Schuring, Martin (Thesis advisor) / Buck, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Schmelz, Peter J (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Since at least the Baroque era, all Western classical woodwind instruments have only used Arundo donax for reeds. This preliminary investigation is one of the first inquiries into alternative natural materials for oboe reeds. The first chapter of this document is an overview of what we currently know about the materials used for reeds from the start of historical documentation until today. The second part of this overview surveys double reed instruments outside of Western classical music for reed materials and candidates for oboe reeds. The second chapter is a survey of some plants in the Poaceae familya group of woody grasses and the family Arundo donax is into determine if there are more candidates for oboe reeds. The third chapter consists of Martin Schuring and I making reeds from two experimental materials: Phragmites and Bambusa textilis. Additionally, Dr. Gardner and I conducted a study involving six participants. I processed Phragmites, Arundo donax, and Bambusa textilis into gouged cane and sent the participants three pieces of each material, which were labeled A, B, and C, respectively. The purpose of the study was to test if oboists with diverse backgrounds could scrape the provided cane into a reed that produces a sound on the oboe. The full study responses are in Appendix B. The last chapter of this document is a scope analysis, courtesy of Professor Jeffrey Kleim, of the plant samples I was able to obtain, which includes Phragmites, Bambusa textilis, and a few other plants. Furthermore, Dr. Lindsey Reymore and I tested the Phragmites and Bambusa textilis reeds Martin Schuring and I made by analyzing spectrograms, extracting audio descriptors from MATLAB, and running a few statistical tests to determine any statistically significant differences. Collective results indicate that eight oboists were able to make functional Phragmites and Bambusa textilis reeds, there are many potential candidates, and there were some statistically significant differences in audio descriptors between the Arundo donax, Phragmites, and Bambusa textilis reeds. Since this is preliminary research and no candidates were deemed unsuitable, future and long-term research is required for more thorough and conclusive data collection and analysis.
ContributorsMaes, Kelsey Amber (Author) / Schuring, Martin (Thesis advisor) / Gardner, Joshua (Committee member) / Reymore, Lindsey (Committee member) / Caslor, Jason (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
In the early part of 2020, musicians faced an unprecedented challenge. A novel coronavirus emerged, spreading throughout the world and creating a pandemic. To control the spread of this virus, local governing officials suspended large gatherings in public spaces, which meant that all live music performances were cancelled for the foreseeable future. As a response to these cancellations, many musicians turned to live streaming, sharing transmissions of live performances over the internet. However, as life under COVID-19-related restrictions continued, the internet quickly became oversaturated with live stream music performances. This led musicians to discover innovative ways to adapt their creative practices for virtual settings. Through the process of commissioning, premiering, and recording new works, this research project explores how music practitioners can create music that is designed specifically for the imposed restrictions on the performing arts that accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic. To complete this project, I commissioned new works for clarinet and bass clarinet intended for performance under shelter-in-place conditions. The pieces included in this project are Two Flights for B-Flat Clarinet by Bill Clay (2020), 8 Months by Jessi Harvey (2020), R....v...rs....m oooiiiiii by Gabo Champagne (2021) and Od-ieu by Kim Farris-Manning (2021). I presented these works in two virtual formats: (1) I staged a virtual concert of their premieres from my home studio space, and (2) released studio-quality recordings of them paired with extra-musical video footage. This document offers an account of the virtual concert, a description of the process of the video production component, and performance guides for each commissioned piece. An audio/video recording of the virtual concert is included as a supplemental media file to this document, as are all music videos.
ContributorsLougheed, Julia Lynn (Author) / Spring, Robert (Thesis advisor) / Gardner, Joshua (Thesis advisor) / Knowles, Kristina (Committee member) / Wells, Christi Jay (Committee member) / Caslor, Jason (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
The rich musical tradition of the Bohemian and Moravian regions of modern-day Czech Republic dates to the Medieval period. In the trumpet community, the orchestral music of Bedřich Smetana, Antonín Dvořák, and Leoš Janáček enjoys considerable attention. Trumpet authors have also explored Czech Baroque and early Romantic music extensively, including the music of Pavel Josef Vejvanovsky. However, a gap emerged in research of Czech trumpet music and Czech trumpet players from the period after the Czechoslovakian communist coup d’état of 1948. After this event, Czech musicians and artists experienced years of censorship and seclusion from the outside world except for those who regretfully fled their homeland. During this time, opinions developed abroad that in a communist environment without freedom and ideological dictations against artists, great art could not be produced. Much to the contrary, since 1948, Czech composers wrote over two-hundred trumpet works for excellent Czech trumpet soloists. This research project seeks to build a wider awareness of the extensive work by Czech composers and trumpeters during this period, and investigate the definition of Czech musical style and trumpeting. Discussion begins with historical analysis of trumpet repertoire throughout Czech musical history to develop a greater understanding of the music composed during a dark period of communist Czech history. This is followed by profiles of selected Czech trumpet soloists who contributed to the Czech trumpet repertoire by recording and commissioning works by Czech composers. A concluding discussion addresses the definition of Czech musical style, and explores compositional aspects and the playing style that make the music “Czech.” This document includes a catalog of works by Czech composers for unaccompanied trumpet or trumpet and electronics, works for trumpet and keyboard, works for solo trumpet and ensemble, and works for trumpet and other solo instruments with ensemble. This catalog was compiled to serve as a resource for future performers interested in Czech trumpet music.
ContributorsBrand, Spencer (Author) / Hickman, David R (Thesis advisor) / Fossum, David (Committee member) / Spring, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021