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The purpose of this qualitative study was to better understand how five choral music educators’ life experiences, prior knowledge, attitudes, values, beliefs, and understandings surrounding the formation of their musical selves have come to shape their professional practice. A secondary purpose of this research was to examine institutional context and governing ideologies of the choral music discipline. The study involved five choral music educators—including the researcher—of various ages, genders, and cultural backgrounds from Winnipeg, Manitoba. This research is grounded in what Beattie (1995) terms the dialectical and collaborative nature of narrative inquiry, but also looks to reflexive inquiry and life history methodologies (Cole & Knowles, 2000), as well as the practice of collective biography (Davies & Gannon, 2006) to shape its methodological framework. As such, autobiographical forms of self-study research are reconceptualized as collaborative self-study. Data collection methods included journal writing, personal in-depth interviews, and participant observation. In particular, regular focus group sessions, which included peer interviewing, played a central role throughout the research process. This forum allowed participants to share their musical life histories and interrogate each others’ narratives, thereby triggering musical memories and exposing the interconnectivity of musical pasts to current professional practice. Data is re-presented in rich narratives which trace the path of each participant’s musical life history in interaction with theory and relevant literature. Numerous themes, sub-themes, tensions, and epiphanal episodes (Denzin, 1994) are illuminated. Moreover, connections between participants’ experiences and resultant ways of knowing are exposed, and we are confronted with “the unexpectedness of universality” (Hofstadter, 2007, p. 242). Thus, our commonessence is revealed. Participant chapters are followed by a postlude featuring the researcher’s personal narratives, an examination of researcher voice, and questions regarding the practice of choral music education that have surfaced through reflexive analysis of the data. This research strives to be a model for personal professional development among choral music educators, and provides a template for future purposeful discussion in the choral discipline.

Abstract Evaluative performances, such as festivals and conservatory examinations, frequently play a large role in formal piano study. Many teachers and parents assume that requiring students to participate in these evaluations will result in several benefits, including increased discipline and motivation, exposure to a balanced and rigorous music curriculum, and access to helpful feedback from expert adjudicators and examiners. However, not all students experience positive outcomes as a result of their participation in evaluative performances. Using a multi-method approach that incorporates grounded theory and narrative inquiry, this research provides insight into how beginning and intermediate piano students experience participating in festivals and examinations and what factors contribute to the quality of students’ experiences. Positive experiences with evaluative performances are characterized by positive emotional outcomes, meaningful music learning, and the development of a strong musical identity. The theoretical model developed through this research presents several important contributors to students’ positive experiences with evaluative performances, including students’ understandings, values, and goals related to music learning, and their abilities and inclinations as performers. The entire learning process must take place within a supportive relational context. When students have positive experiences with evaluative performances, their self-efficacy is heightened. They also experience self-determination regarding their music studies and their involvement in evaluative performances. The self-efficacy and self-determination that follow students’ success and positive experiences motivate further involvement in music study.

This dissertation is a study of the comic intermezzo’s literary origins and musical practice in the years before Pergolesi’s La serva padrona (1733). It begins with a chronological examination of Italian comic plays and operas written between 1660 and 1723. During these years comic playwrights adopted a style of writing speech from the improvised theatre which makes use of what Richard Andrews (1993) refers to as “elastic gags.” This style of comedy flourished under Medici patronage in Florence in the last decades of the seventeenth century and then spread to Venice, Rome and Naples during the first years of the intermezzo’s development. It is a style of comedy shared with the plays of Molière, and other contemporaneous French authors. This dissertation examines several scenes based on French works which have previously not been identified as having earlier sources. The decision to adapt these earlier sources for the intermezzo did not occur in a vacuum. The practice of comedy in the intermezzo was conditioned by the artistic, social and political climate of Italy. This study investigates the relationship between intermezzos and the milieus which produced them. The success of some intermezzos, like Il marito giocatore (1719), resulted from a combination of their artistic merit and their broad social appeal, while others, like Albino e Plautilla (1723), were musically adept but remained obscure because their humour was specific to the world they satirized. Both intermezzos are indebted to earlier French sources. Many others which are metatheatrical in nature draw on contemporary debates about opera. A final section examines selected arias from the intermezzo repertory using incongruity theory. Comic theory makes clear that the intermezzo’s musical language was not a new development. Just as librettists drew on earlier written traditions to form the literary text of the intermezzo, composers drew on existing musical practices to create humour. The intermezzo was therefore not naively comic—a portrait of the genre which is all too common—but rather a repertory which was thoroughly enmeshed within contemporary artistic practice and a wider social and cultural world.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to better understand how five choral music educators’ life experiences, prior knowledge, attitudes, values, beliefs, and understandings surrounding the formation of their musical selves have come to shape their professional practice. A secondary purpose of this research was to examine institutional context and governing ideologies of the choral music discipline. The study involved five choral music educators—including the researcher—of various ages, genders, and cultural backgrounds from Winnipeg, Manitoba. This research is grounded in what Beattie (1995) terms the dialectical and collaborative nature of narrative inquiry, but also looks to reflexive inquiry and life history methodologies (Cole & Knowles, 2000), as well as the practice of collective biography (Davies & Gannon, 2006) to shape its methodological framework. As such, autobiographical forms of self-study research are reconceptualized as collaborative self-study. Data collection methods included journal writing, personal in-depth interviews, and participant observation. In particular, regular focus group sessions, which included peer interviewing, played a central role throughout the research process. This forum allowed participants to share their musical life histories and interrogate each others’ narratives, thereby triggering musical memories and exposing the interconnectivity of musical pasts to current professional practice. Data is re-presented in rich narratives which trace the path of each participant’s musical life history in interaction with theory and relevant literature. Numerous themes, sub-themes, tensions, and epiphanal episodes (Denzin, 1994) are illuminated. Moreover, connections between participants’ experiences and resultant ways of knowing are exposed, and we are confronted with “the unexpectedness of universality” (Hofstadter, 2007, p. 242). Thus, our commonessence is revealed. Participant chapters are followed by a postlude featuring the researcher’s personal narratives, an examination of researcher voice, and questions regarding the practice of choral music education that have surfaced through reflexive analysis of the data. This research strives to be a model for personal professional development among choral music educators, and provides a template for future purposeful discussion in the choral discipline.

This dissertation is a study of the comic intermezzo’s literary origins and musical practice in the years before Pergolesi’s La serva padrona (1733). It begins with a chronological examination of Italian comic plays and operas written between 1660 and 1723. During these years comic playwrights adopted a style of writing speech from the improvised theatre which makes use of what Richard Andrews (1993) refers to as “elastic gags.” This style of comedy flourished under Medici patronage in Florence in the last decades of the seventeenth century and then spread to Venice, Rome and Naples during the first years of the intermezzo’s development. It is a style of comedy shared with the plays of Molière, and other contemporaneous French authors. This dissertation examines several scenes based on French works which have previously not been identified as having earlier sources. The decision to adapt these earlier sources for the intermezzo did not occur in a vacuum. The practice of comedy in the intermezzo was conditioned by the artistic, social and political climate of Italy. This study investigates the relationship between intermezzos and the milieus which produced them. The success of some intermezzos, like Il marito giocatore (1719), resulted from a combination of their artistic merit and their broad social appeal, while others, like Albino e Plautilla (1723), were musically adept but remained obscure because their humour was specific to the world they satirized. Both intermezzos are indebted to earlier French sources. Many others which are metatheatrical in nature draw on contemporary debates about opera. A final section examines selected arias from the intermezzo repertory using incongruity theory. Comic theory makes clear that the intermezzo’s musical language was not a new development. Just as librettists drew on earlier written traditions to form the literary text of the intermezzo, composers drew on existing musical practices to create humour. The intermezzo was therefore not naively comic—a portrait of the genre which is all too common—but rather a repertory which was thoroughly enmeshed within contemporary artistic practice and a wider social and cultural world.

The objective of this dissertation is to explore how collaborative partnerships between composers and performers can shape musical repertoire. Since composers do not work in isolation and they often compose with specific players in mind, the person they write for can influence their approach to a given piece. If they consult the performer, a working relationship might ensue in which the performer’s contribution to the music can range from the interpretation of the piece to its co-creation. Numerous flute compositions in Hungary since the 1950s were created for specific performers and have therefore greatly benefited from this type of music-making. This study proposes a theoretical model of composer-performer collaborations that classifies these artistic partnerships into six types, according to the amount and kind of influence the performer has on the music. Based on score analysis and interviews conducted with Hungarian performers and composers, the creative contributions made by flutists István Matuz, Zoltán Gyöngyössy, Gergely Ittzés, Gyula Csetényi, Bea Berényi, Ákos Dratsay and János Bálint are examined in the music of Miklós Kocsár, Iván Madarász, László Dubrovay, József Sári, Miklós Sugár, István Láng, László Tihanyi, István Szigeti, Máté Hollós and Péter Eötvös. In addition, pieces by flutist-composers István Matuz, Zoltán Gyöngyössy and Gergely Ittzés are also studied. The focus is directed to music for one to four flutes, flute with orchestra and flute with piano, as these are the types of pieces in which composer-performer partnerships are most apparent.

The objective of this dissertation is to explore how collaborative partnerships between composers and performers can shape musical repertoire. Since composers do not work in isolation and they often compose with specific players in mind, the person they write for can influence their approach to a given piece. If they consult the performer, a working relationship might ensue in which the performer’s contribution to the music can range from the interpretation of the piece to its co-creation. Numerous flute compositions in Hungary since the 1950s were created for specific performers and have therefore greatly benefited from this type of music-making. This study proposes a theoretical model of composer-performer collaborations that classifies these artistic partnerships into six types, according to the amount and kind of influence the performer has on the music. Based on score analysis and interviews conducted with Hungarian performers and composers, the creative contributions made by flutists István Matuz, Zoltán Gyöngyössy, Gergely Ittzés, Gyula Csetényi, Bea Berényi, Ákos Dratsay and János Bálint are examined in the music of Miklós Kocsár, Iván Madarász, László Dubrovay, József Sári, Miklós Sugár, István Láng, László Tihanyi, István Szigeti, Máté Hollós and Péter Eötvös. In addition, pieces by flutist-composers István Matuz, Zoltán Gyöngyössy and Gergely Ittzés are also studied. The focus is directed to music for one to four flutes, flute with orchestra and flute with piano, as these are the types of pieces in which composer-performer partnerships are most apparent.

Ce mémoire de maîtrise s’intéresse à la scène musicale islandaise à travers le documentaire. La notion de scène désigne généralement un contexte spatial au sein duquel différents acteurs (musiciens, producteurs, promoteurs, amateurs de musique, etc.) partagent des intérêts à l’égard de la musique. Dans ce mémoire, elle est conceptualisée en combinant d’une part l’approche de Straw (1991) qui met l’accent sur l’aspect interactionnel et réticulaire de la scène et souligne le potentiel d’adaptation au changement de cet espace de sociabilité ; et d’autre part, celle de Bennett et Peterson (2004) qui insistent sur les différences d’échelles auxquelles se déploient les réseaux d’interactions que constituent les scènes locales, trans-locales et virtuelles. L’auteure y intègre aussi une réflexion géographique destinée à problématiser le caractère insulaire de l’Islande en tant qu’élément productif de la scène musicale qui s’y déploie. Pour ce faire, elle a recours aux propositions théoriques de Massey (2005) concernant l’espace comme construit à travers un ensemble hétérogène de trajectoires, des « stories-so-far » dont la co-présence et la simultanéité conférerait au lieu que serait, en l’occurrence, la scène islandaise, sa spécificité. Ce questionnement fait l’objet d’une exploration empirique à travers une série de documentaires s’intéressant, selon des modes différents (Nichols, 2001 ; 2010), à différents visages de la musique locale en Islande. Les représentations visuelles et auditives de l’Islande et de la musique islandaise que produisent ces documentaires constituent le discours qui fait l’objet de l’analyse. Inspirée de la perspective de Hall (1994 ; 1997), le discours est abordé en tant qu’unité significative socio-historiquement ancrée et composée d’énoncés. La démarche méthodologique adoptée consiste à examiner un corpus de documentaires pour en dégager les énoncés et, sur cette base, reconstituer les différentes trajectoires constitutives de la scène musicale islandaise ainsi mise en discours. L’analyse met en évidence cinq trajectoires (Monde ; Affinités ; Filiation ; Stéréotypie et authenticité ; Territorialité) ainsi que les différentes modalités de leur co-occurrence, points de rencontre ou de distanciation, à différentes échelles. Ce sont ces points de (non) rencontre qui constituent le lieu de la scène islandaise. / This Masters thesis examines the icelandic music scene as portrayed through documentaries. The notion of scene usually refers to a spatial entity in which different actors (musicians, producers, promoters, fans, etc) share their common interests in music. In this thesis, its conceptualization combines elements drawn from an approach developed by Straw (1991) wich focuses on ideas of interaction and network, and insists on how this space of sociability is formed through adaptation and change ; and from Bennett and Peterson’s (2004) approach which emphasize the difference in scales through which the networks of interactions characteristic of local, trans-local and virtual scenes are deployed. The author also addresses geographical questions as a means to further problematize the insular character of Island construed as one of the elements through which the music scene is produced. She does so by mobilizing Massey’s (2005) theory of space as a coming together of heterogeneous trajectories and "stories-so-far", and argues that it is the copresence and simultaneity of these trajectories that give the icelandic music scene its specificity. This line of investigation is pursued through the empirical exploration of a series of documentaries which address through different modes (Nichols, 2001 ; 2010) various facets of what they construe as local music in Iceland. The visual and aural representations that these documentaries put forth form the discourse that is the object of the analysis. Inspired by Hall (1994 ; 1997) discourse is considered as a meaningful and sociohistorically contingent unit composed of statements. The methodological process that guides the analysis consists in the critical examination of a corpus of documentaries with a view to identifying the statements that they articulate, and, on this basis, to reconstituting the different trajectories that constitute the icelandic music scene discursively produced therein. The analysis brings forth five trajectories (World ; Affinities ; Filiation ; Stereotyping et authenticity ; Territoriality) and discusses their various co-occurrences at different scales. It is these (non-) meeting points which are conceptualized as constituting the place of the icelandic music scene.