Master of Music / Department of School of Music, Theatre, and Dance / Frank Tracz / The following report is a comprehensive analysis of two works for wind band and one work for small chamber ensemble, prepared by Patrick Sullivan. The report was completed in addition to a Graduate Conducting Recital, taking place on Sunday, March 10, 2013 at 3:00pm. The concert featured the Kansas State University Wind Ensemble and took place on the Kansas State University Campus in McCain Auditorium, the conductors were Andrew Feyes and Patrick Sullivan. Audio and video recordings of the conducted performance can be found within the K-State Research Exchange database. The following report includes three comprehensive Unit Studies or Teacher Research Guides found in the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band book series. The report also includes three Tracz Analysis Grids, newly published in The Art of Interpretation of Band Music. The examined pieces are as follows. Full band works, Flight by Claude T. Smith and Baron Cimetiére’s Mambo by Donald Grantham. A chamber work for double woodwind quintet, Suite Persane by André Caplet.

Master of Music / Department of Music / Frank Tracz / The following report is a comprehensive analysis of two works for wind band and one work for brass ensemble, prepared by Adam Ladd. The report was completed during the Spring semester of 2014 and culminated with live performances of each piece by the Kansas State University Concert Band and Brass Ensemble with Adam Ladd conducting. Audio and video recordings of the conducted performances can be found within the K-State Research Exchange database. The following report includes three comprehensive Unit Studies or Teacher Research Guides in the format that is described in the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band book series. The report also includes three Tracz Analysis Grids in the format that is found in The Art of Interpretation of Band Music. The examined pieces are as follows. Toccatta for Band, by Frank Erickson, Mutations from Bach, by Samuel Barber, and Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, by John Philip Sousa, arranged by Philip Sparke.

Master of Music / Department of Music, Theatre and Dance / Kurt R. Gartner / The current study is an in depth look of the impact of steel pan ensemble within the college curriculum of the Midwest. The goal of the study is to further understand what perceived impacts steel pan ensemble might have on student learning through the perceptions of both instructors and students. The ensemble's impact on the students’ senses of rhythm, ability to listen and balance in an ensemble, their understanding of voicing and harmony, and appreciation of world music were all investigated through both the perceptions of the students as well as the instructors. Other areas investigated were the role of the instructor to determine how their teaching methods and topics covered impacted the students' opinion of the ensemble. This includes, but is not limited to, time spent teaching improvisation, rote teaching versus Western notation, and adding historical context by teaching the students the history of the ensemble. The Midwest region was chosen both for its high density of collegiate steel pan ensembles as well as its encompassing of some of the oldest pan ensembles in the U.S. The study used an explanatory mixed methodology employing two surveys, a student version and an instructor version, distributed to the collegiate steel pan ensembles of the Midwest via the internet. The researcher intends for the current data to serve the music community in several ways: first, by determining exactly what the students and instructors value about the ensemble, we will better understand how an instrument created less than a century ago was able to infiltrate music programs all over the world. Second, giving instructors insight on the students' perspectives will also enable them to create a more effective and enjoyable curriculum. And lastly, with this information, instructors and program supervisors will be better suited to determine just how large of a role the ensemble should play in their students' education.

Master of Music / Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance / Frank C. Tracz / This report provides a comprehensive research and teaching guide for three works for wind ensemble, brass ensemble, and chamber winds: Three Songs from Sussex by Hugh M. Stuart, Fanfare for Brass and Percussion by Karel Husa, and Serenade No. 10 in Bb, Largo, Allegro molto by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Each chapter provides information on the composer, composition, historical perspective, technical considerations, stylistic considerations, musical elements, form and structure, other listening suggestions, and seating arrangement considerations. Also included are the lesson plan outlines that were used to teach each work, and a detailed score analysis grid. The report documents the full process of selecting, researching, rehearsing, and performing the selected literature with the hope that it will aid in future performances of the works.

Master of Music / Department of Music / Kurt Gartner / This is a report intended for musicians and scholars who seek to enhance their understanding of any number of the following compositions: Prelúdio No. 1 Mi Menor (E Minor), op. 11 by Ney Rosauro, Prelúdio No. 2 la maior (A minor) by Ney Rosauro, Rotation IV by Eric Sammut, Water Falls for a Desert by Greg Coffey, Strands of Time by Brian Blume, Surface Tension by Dave Hollinden, bitsmoke by Casey Farina. Each work has been analyzed examined in accordance with Jan LaRue’s Guidelines For Style Analysis. For some compositions including only relative-pitch instruments, analysis of harmony has been omitted. For all compositions, the author has added notable performance considerations, essential technical and interpretive considerations in accord with LaRue’s guidelines. Therefore, the approach taken in analytical categories of this document can be exhibited as Sound, Harmony, Melody, Rhythm, Growth, and Performance.

In the summer of 2008, over two days, my wife and I hiked the Maligne Range (Skyline) trail, situated in the Canadian Rockies near Jasper, Alberta. The 45-km trail begins in a pine forest at Maligne Lake but soon rises above the tree line. From there it winds its way across two successively higher mountain passes. In between lies a sprawling meadow speckled with colourful flowers and criss-crossed by glacial creeks. At the halfway point, the trail switchbacks steeply to the very top of the range, a vantage point that affords spectacular views in all directions. But a storm set in just as we reached the peak. Unwilling to serve as lightning rods, we broke out into a run, finding shelter only as the trail drops off quickly on the other side of the range. The breathtaking views, ruggedness and diversity of terrain, whistling marmots and sense of isolation all left a strong impression on me. I was especially delighted to realize that the very topographical contour of the trail provides a basic plan for a large-scale sonata-form structure, one that builds up in waves of tension, culminating in a fierce storm at the top: the development. In a similar vein, after the stormy material subsides (as in Beethoven’s Sixth), the descent, recalling the ascent, but now abridged and in reverse order, serves as varied recapitulation. The result is a one-movement symphony in the tradition of Sibelius’s Seventh and Barber’s First. Essentially tonal, the harmonic language is enriched with polytonal accents, modal alterations, complex chords and the colouristic usage of collections and twelve-tone techniques. Polymetre, multi-stranded canons, metric modulation and controlled aleatoric techniques enliven the rhythmic plane. The work’s structure is organic, developed out of limited yet contrasting thematic material, with all programmatic elements assuming abstract structural roles. The symphony’s bright orchestration and rhythmic vitality is indebted to composers of the modern Russian school; its emotional sweep and extremes, to Shostakovich; the scoring and harmonic content of certain dissonant chords, to Varèse; and its sense of drama and breadth, to Beethoven and Sibelius.

Popular music plays a significant role in the lives of most adolescents. The central question explored is whether three groups of adolescents (psychiatrically ill, depressed, and non-clinical adolescents) differed on self-reported data on: (a) the role of popular music in their lives, and (b) in their emotional reactions to music. The next question is whether the developmental issues of gender and personality consolidation, age, and school commitment simultaneously influence how the three groups of adolescents use music in their lives and in their emotional reactions to music. The last question is whether the three groups have significantly different music preferences in the five genres of popular (rap, pop/dance, heavy metal/hard rock, classic rock, and alternative). There were 126 subjects employed in this research. I created the Walker Music Questionnaire (WMQ) to explore the role and importance that music plays in the lives of the adolescents. A factor analysis found five factors (Introspection, Identity-Music, Discerning Music Identity, Fantasy-Rebellion, and Identity-Self). The Adolescent Semantic Differential Scales (ASDS) measured the adolescents’ emotional responses to 10 pieces of popular music representing the five genres described above. These scales are well known measures of emotional response and I added eight adjectives that represented adolescent issues. This measure was also factor analyzed and the three factors of Evaluation, Romance, and Potency emerged. Preference for the five genres was determined from the Adolescent Semantic Differential Scales. MANOVAS were done with both sets of factors derived from the WMQ and ASDS simultaneously using the developmental variables of age group, gender, personality, and school commitment. Psychological health was found to be a significant variable. Specifically, the role of music for the depressed group was significantly different from the other two groups of adolescents. The developmental issues that remained significant were personality and school commitment. Furthermore, the psychiatrically ill group reacted more emotionally to the music than the other two groups and this remained significant even when the developmental variable of personality was considered. The three groups were not differentiated by their preference ratings on the ASDS.

The song cycle, Two Orchestral Songs, is a setting of two texts by Canadian poet Gwendolyn MacEwen (1941–1987) from her 1969 collection, The Shadow-Maker. The texts are symbolic in nature and discuss the question of personal sacrifice. In “The Sacrifice,” the narrator observes leaves falling in autumn and compares this “necessary death” against the “unnecessary” sacrifices that we make when we lay down our most beautiful aspects, our “golden selves,” at the “altars of the world” in order to please some external arbiter (the “shapeless ghost”). However, much like a man raking leaves in autumn, these dropped aspects get gathered up by “the Gardener” (a metaphor for Time), and we are left questioning whether our deliberate sacrifices enabled us to achieve the divine end to which we were intended. “How Weeps the Hangman,” employs similar imagery of leaves representing the “season’s sacrifice” of “pain, love, glory, blood.” The titular metaphor of the Hangman, however, draws on tarot imagery, specifically the twelfth Major Arcana card known as The Hanged Man, which depicts a man hanging upside-down by one foot from a cross or living tree; the man’s facial expression is usually neutral, not an expression of suffering. The card is interpreted in various ways as meaning sacrifice, letting go, surrender, and acceptance. In MacEwen’s poem, the narrator places herself (and us) on the way to the scaffold to offer up our seasonal sacrifices, but the lingering question focuses not on the object (us, The Hanged Man), but on the agent of change, the hooded Hangman who “does his duty to you and me.” She wonders what pain our own whimpering in the sacrificial process causes to him, whether he and the “embarrassed tree” weep at our losses. The musical language of this composition employs extended tonal key areas based on synthetic scales, in particular the four transpositionally related enneatonic scales. The harmonies are largely tertian in structure, with added tones and superimposed sonorities creating an effect of bitonality. The imagery of dropping leaves is recreated musically by the prominent use of descending seconds and descending thirds in the melodic and accompanying parts.

The use of keyboard percussion instruments in choro, one of the earliest forms of Brazilian popular music, is a relatively recent phenomenon and its expansion into university music programs and relocation from small clubs and private homes to concert halls has changed the way that choro is learned and performed. For many Brazilians, this kind of innovation in a “traditional” genre represents a challenge to their notion of a Brazilian cultural identity. This study examines the dynamic relationship that Brazilians have with representations of their culture, especially in the area of popular music, through an in depth discussion of the use of keyboard percussion instruments within the genre of choro. I discuss the implications of using keyboard percussion in choro with a detailed description of its contemporary practice and a critical examination of the sociological and academic issues that surround choro historically and as practiced today. This includes an historical overview of choro and organology of keyboard percussion instruments in Brazil. I discuss multiple perspectives on the genre including a consideration of choro as part of the “world music” movement and choro’s ambiguous relationship to jazz. Through an examination of the typical instrumentation and performance conventions used in choro, I address the meanings and implications of the adaptation of those practices and of the various instrumental roles found in choro to keyboard percussion instruments. Solutions to problems relating to instrumental adaptation are offered, with particular attention to issues of notation, improvisation, rhythmic approach and the role of the cavaquinho. I also discuss the significance of rhythmic feel and suingue (swing) in relation to the concept of brasilidade (brazilianness) as informed by and expressed through Brazilian popular music.

On a small island in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence a distinct Francophone community has persisted for nearly three hundred years despite historical traumas and the pressures exerted by a majority Anglophone environment. The factors that have contributed to the persistence of this community are a matter of some debate, yet the cultural identity of the Acadians of Prince Edward Island in the twenty-first century appears to have remained intact. Contrary to a popular discourse of identity "revival," this distinct culture is neither a recent phenomenon nor is it something that is homogeneously pan-Acadian. While much popular and scholarly discourse on the Acadians centres on their tragic past and nationalist perspectives of Acadian identity construction, this dissertation focuses on how identity is created, perceived and expressed in a local context. Music plays a key role in articulating this local identity; it helps to create and maintain social relationships both within the community and with other cultural groups. The emergence of a distinct musical tradition has contributed substantially to the production and maintenance of cultural identity amongst these Island Acadians. Through case studies of specific performance contexts, individual musicians and professional groups, I examine current and ongoing processes of Acadian cultural definition and how musicians negotiate the dichotomy of traditional and modern performance contexts and forms of expression. I consider the musical alliances and exchanges that inform the experiences of these Islanders and how these intercultural encounters have influenced local musical practices and discourses about Acadian identity. My research demonstrates that contemporary cultural markers, and particularly music, are primary tools through which members of this invisible minority cultural group define and present their ethno-cultural identity both locally and to cultural outsiders.