Master of Music / Department of Music / Jana R. Fallin / Who was Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophius Mozart? He was a child prodigy who dazzled Kings, Queens, Emperors and Empresses as a young boy and lead an remarkable life in his first ten years. The facts of Mozart’s childhood are known and available, however the vast majority of research is devoted to Mozart’s music, life and career during his adult years. Perhaps the time for a child to begin to realize the importance of Mozart in history would be to create a connection between young Mozart’s daily activities to a student of parallel age. The purpose of the study is to illuminate the life of the child prodigy Wolfgang Mozart using creative digital storytelling for elementary aged students. Due to the awarding of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, research concerning Mozart’s rise and fall in fame was completed in Vienna, Austria, June 21 through July 16, 2010. The resulting focus of the research was to bring awareness to the minds of elementary students of Mozart’s child prodigy years. Using digital storytelling, listening maps, and composition projects, students will step into the world of Mozart as a composer and begin to relate his life to theirs. Data analysis will establish the effective use of digital storytelling to reveal the student’s ability to correlate the boyhood life of Mozart with the master composer. The study was completed in a pilot program in McPherson, Kansas in January 2011.

Master of Music / Department of Music / Gary Mortenson / This Master’s report focuses on analyzing the four works performed on the author’s Master’s recital on April 10, 2011, from a biographical, historical, theoretical, and technical standpoint. These works include André Jolivet’s Concertino for Trumpet, Oskar Böhme’s Concerto for Trumpet in F Minor, op. 18, Tomaso Albinoni’s Sonata á 6 con Tromba, and Manuel de Falla’s Suite of Old Spanish Dances.

Master of Music / Department of Music / Frank C. Tracz / This document is written in support of a conducting recital given in partial fulfillment of the Master’s of Music Education with an Emphasis in Instrumental Conducting at Kansas State University. It encompasses the historical research, theoretical analysis, and rehearsal recommendations and considerations necessary to prepare the selected works for performance. The pieces analyzed are Michael Daugherty’s Motown Metal, Stanley Leonard’s Antiphonies, and Ira Hearshen’s second movement, “after the Thunderer” from Symphony on Themes of John Philip Sousa. I seek to highlight the significance of these works to the literature of their mediums, and show how they are valuable pieces of literature in the contemporary repertoire. In addition, I offer my philosophies on music learning and literature selection as a means to better understand the process entailed in laying the groundwork for successful authentic learning experiences for conductor and students.

Master of Arts / Department of English / Dean G. Hall / Salman Rushdie's 1999 novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet is ostensibly a rock 'n' roll novel, largely set in the 1960s, that traces the commercial rise of Indian rock star protagonists Vina Apsara and Ormus Cama. As their fame and wealth rise to global status and their stage show comes to entail a logistical complexity of military proportions, it becomes increasingly difficult to discern the couple's earlier countercultural ideals within their new established culture status. I argue that despite the change from countercultural to establishment-based values in the novel's protagonists, Rushdie does make a case in The Ground Beneath Her Feet for the possibility of countercultural efficacy against the commodifying culture of global capitalism (which I refer to as the "Frame"). His recipe for combating the exclusive hierarchies produced by the Frame is a combination of the non-totalizing politics of postmodernism and the subversive potential of uncommodified rock music. I pay close attention to establishing the historical templates--John Lennon of the Beatles and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys--of the novel's protagonists in an effort to understand the sort of countercultural alternative Rushdie is proposing. I likewise focus on the novel's depiction of the Beach Boys' Smile album, which as a still commercially unreleased record, reinforces Rushdie's imperative in The Ground Beneath Her Feet for an uncommodifying counterculture and works in tandem with his portrayals of the artistic plights of several minor characters in the novel as well.

Master of Music / Department of Music / Frank Tracz / This document is based on the preparation, rehearsal, and performance of selected pieces for the Graduate Conducting recital of Joshua D. Hankey. The pieces examined in the theoretical and historical analysis for this report are Ancient Voices by Michael Sweeney, The Headless Horseman by Timothy Broege and Cut to the Chase by Todd Stalter. This document also contains rehearsal plans and procedures for the preparation of the literature. The recital was performed on May 9, 2013 in the Santa Fe Trail Middle School Gymnasium on the campus of Santa Fe Trail Middle School, and was performed by the members of the Santa Fe Trail Middle School 7th grade Intermediate Band, and the Santa Fe Trail Middle School Concert Band.

Master of Music / Department of Music / Anna Marie Wytko / In 1838, Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax created the saxophone. The saxophone was officially patented on June 24, 1846. Sax became the first Professor of Saxophone at the Conservatoire de Paris. This conservatoire has been and continues to be a historically important school of music in Europe. There have been four saxophone professors at the Conservatoire National Supèrieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris since the instrument’s creation. These professors include: Adolphe Sax (1814-1894), Marcel Mule (1901-2001), Daniel Deffayet (1922-2002), and Claude Delangle (born 1957). Each instructor has championed the saxophone to new heights by refining pedagogical approaches and by advocating for the creation of new saxophone compositions. The music examined in this document represents pieces composed for each of the four saxophone professors who have taught at the Conservatoire de Paris. Paul-Agricole Génin’s composition Variations sur un thème espagnol: pour saxophone alto et piano was inspired by Adolphe Sax, Fernande Decruck composed Sonata in C-Sharp for Alto Saxophone and Piano (1943) for Marcel Mule, Ida Gotkovsky wrote Variations pathétiques: pour Saxophone Alto et Piano (1980) for Daniel Deffayet, and Sequenza IX for Alto Saxophone (1980) by Luciano Berio was dedicated to Claude Delangle. All of these pieces demonstrate how composers continually strive to expand the boundaries of the skilled saxophonists’ musical style, technical facility, and overall flexibility on the saxophone. This master’s report, presented as extended program notes, includes biographical information about the composers, a historical and stylistic overview of the selected compositions, and a harmonic and formal analysis of the music with respect to performance considerations.

Master of Music, Theater, and Dance / Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance. / David Littrell / This report provides detailed analyses of several orchestral works. Current orchestras have striven to rejuvenate their programs by balancing canonical literature with newer or less familiar works; such a practice has become especially important in an age when audiences are dwindling and orchestras are disbanding. The works included in this report follow that balanced blueprint, including staples such as Haydn’s Symphony No. 103 in E-flat Major (the “Drumroll”) and Berlioz’s “Hungarian March” from The Damnation of Faust to new orchestrations of 20th century works, such as Bryce Craig’s arrangement of the toccata from Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, as well as works composed within the last six years, such as Casey Cangelosi’s Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra No. 2. Each work’s formal design is straightforward, and the technical skills required are not virtuosic. The chapters below explore each work from a historical, theoretical, and performance perspective.

Master of Music / Department of Music / Craig B. Parker / Igor Stravinsky and Aldous Huxley maintained a sincere and abiding friendship for nearly two decades while both men were living in Los Angeles, California. Huxley’s command of music literature and understanding of musical concepts promoted a vital exchange of ideas between the two men. By the time of their meeting in Hollywood, each man appreciated the importance of the other in his field of expertise, despite Huxley’s negative criticisms of Stravinsky’s music in the 1920s. This mutual respect led to collaborations between Stravinsky, Huxley, and the American conductor Robert Craft on a series of concert-lectures and recordings. Stravinsky esteemed his friend so highly that he was compelled to dedicate a composition that he had been writing at the time of Huxley’s death to the writer’s memory. This paper includes a chapter of biographical information on Aldous Huxley, a chapter detailing the friendship of Stravinsky and Huxley in chronological order, a chapter about Huxley’s criticisms of Stravinsky’s music, a chapter about Huxley’s concert collaborations with Stravinsky and Craft, and a chapter detailing the compositional history and techniques of Stravinsky’s Variations for Orchestra (in Memory of Aldous Huxley). The first appendix lists additional meetings between Stravinsky and Huxley, as detailed in the writings of Igor Stravinsky, Vera Stravinsky, and Robert Craft. The second appendix is a chronological list of all Huxley writings mentioning Stravinsky.

Master of Music / Department of Music / Frank C. Tracz / This document was submitted to the Graduate School of Kansas State University as a partial requirement for the Master’s of Music Education degree. Enclosed is information pertaining to quality literature selection, a music education philosophy, theoretical and historical analyses, and rehearsal plans for the Graduate Conducting Recital of Anna K. Eaverson held on Wednesday, March 19, 2010. The analytical methods used in this document are based on the Blocher/Miles unit studies found in the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band series as well as macro-micro-macro score analysis. The selections analyzed using these methods include Symphony in Brass by Eric Ewazen, Dances with Winds by Shelley Hanson, and March from Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber by Paul Hindemith.

Master of Music / Department of Music / Frank C. Tracz / This document was submitted to the Graduate School of Kansas State University as a partial requirement for the Master’s of Music Education degree. It contains the historical, theoretical, performance, and rehearsal consideration, for each of the three pieces that were performed on the Graduate Student Conducting Recital on Wednesday, March 12, 2010. Selections performed on the recital included in the document’s analysis portion include First Suite in E Flat by Gustav Holst, Japanese Overture by Ney Rosauro, and Inferno by Daniel Bukvich. The analysis format for this report is based on the Blocker/Miles Unit Study technique found in the Teaching Music through Performance in Band series, as well as the Tracz concept of macro-micro score analysis. The performances of the Kansas State University Wind Ensemble served as the basis for the technical, musical, and stylistic evaluations and analysis.