Over the twentieth century, Camille Lucie Nickerson excelled in her multi-faceted career as an educator, musician, and interpreter for the advancement of musical education for generations of black students in New Orleans and at Howard University in Washington D.C. Nickerson devoted herself to furthering her musical education through private instruction with her father, Professor William J. Nickerson. She then graduated with a diploma from Southern University and with a B.A. and M.A. in music from Oberlin College. Nickerson’s leadership in musical associations on a local and national level enhanced her ability to reach audiences of all ages through her performances. She dedicated her life to musical education and the sharing Creole folk music, both personal attributes passed down from her father. While Nickerson was determined to preserve Creole folk music through her lecture-recitals, her wider purpose argued for a distinct recognition for Creole culture, thus, acknowledgment of her culture.

Musical improvisation is an infinite artistic well. It helps the musician to make a personal performance and lets the music reflect the inner feelings. It is a language with which the performer can adapt the formulation to the specific situation. Yet so many have fear and respect when facing the phenomenon. In this study Dan Alkenäs discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using musical improvisation as a pedagogical method in school education. During a semester Alkenäs has, together with music teacher Bitten Löfgren and a group of pupils, studied what results are to be expected when teachers let musical improvisation have a leading role in music lessons. He discusses the creative working environment and the pupils’ ability to put theory into practice. One leading theme is the discussion of the common view of musicality. Alkenäs argues that it is important for a music teacher in a democratic school, with children from different kinds of cultures and backgrounds, to be flexible and adjust the lessons according to the individuals in the group. The study shows that this pedagogy, among other things, has a positive effect on interaction between students with different interest, levels of knowledge and potentials.

Die Einleitung beschreibt das Konzept des Symposions und des Buchs zusammen mit Grundlinien der Situation der Musikdidaktik bzw. Musikpädagogik in Deutschland. Ein zweiter Abschnitt gibt Zusammenfassungen der Beiträge und zeigt Querverbindungen, ein dritter Abschnitt skizziert die Themen und Struktur der drei Diskussionsrunden („Fishbowls“) zwischen jeweils 3-4 Autoren des Buchs und der letzte Abschnitt gibt Anregungen für die Arbeit mit dem Material, insbesondere den DVDs (die jede Stunde aus drei Kamerawinkeln zeigen). / The introduction describes the concept of the symposion and the book together with some baselines of the situation of music didactics in germany. A second part gives summaries of the articles and connections between them, a third part is about the three discussions (“fishbowls”) between the authors of the book and the last part offers suggestions how to work with the material, specially the DVDs (which show each lesson with three camera-angles).

Der Autor entfaltet zunächst seine Zweifel daran, ob man Musikstunden überhaupt dadurch gerecht wird, dass man sie ins "Licht" von Theorien stellt. Ebenso schwierig, wenn nicht unmöglich, dürfte es sein, didaktische Theorien ins Licht von Praxis zu stellen, etwa im Sinne einer Bewährungsprobe. Solchen Zweifeln setzt der Autor dann aber die Überlegung entgegen, "dass der schönste Skeptizismus keiner ist, wenn er sich nicht auch gegen sich selbst wendet". Er stellt also die (Thüringer) Stunde ins Licht einer ethnographischen Methode, der "dichten Beschreibung" nach Clifford Geertz, und erzählt die Interaktion zwischen Mädchen, Jungen und Musiklehrer als (hypothetische) Geschichte nach, in der sich Mechanismen der Benachteiligung von Jungen zeigen, wie sie möglicherweise - wenn man nicht aufpasst - im Klassenmusizieren verstärkt werden. / In the beginning the author develops doubts in the possibility to live up music lessons by throwing on them the "light" of theories. Comparably difficult, if not impossible, may it be to throw on theo-ries the light of classroom situations, e.g. as a practical test on theoretical validity. But the author subtends this insight, reflecting "that the most beautiful scepticism is worthless if not applied even to itself". So he exposes the "Thuringia" lesson to the light of an ethnographic method, Clifford Geertz' "Thick Description". He tells the interaction between girls, boys and the teacher as a (hypo-thetic) story, in which mechanisms of boys' disadvantages emerge that possibly - if we don't care - may be aggravated when we practice to play music in class.

Die komprimierte Darstellung der Fishbowl bietet Einblicke in die aktuelle Diskussion fachspezifischer Fragen. Drei Experten (Thomas Ott, Christian Rolle und Wolfgang Martin Stroh) diskutieren nach ihren Einzelvorträgen miteinander über Grundfragen der Musikdidaktik. An der Diskussion können sich auch Einzelne aus dem Publikum beteiligen. Die Moderation hat Anne Niessen. Die Diskussion dreht sich wesentlich darum, was verschiedene Musikdidaktiker unter ästhetischen, musikalischen, musikbezogenen Wahrnehmungspraxen bzw. –tätigkeiten und Erfahrungen verstehen, außerdem um das Verhältnis dieser Begriffe zu Bildung, Symbolbildung, Bedeutungszuschreibung und Lernen. Die Theorie wird nicht nur an den Videos, sondern auch an erzählten Unterrichtsbeispielen festgemacht. / The abridged fishbowl-discussion gives an idea of currently discussed problems in the german discourse on music education at general schools (=music didactic). In Fishbowl C three experts (Thomas Ott, Christian Rolle und Wolfgang Martin Stroh with Anne Niessen as moderator) after their lectures discuss their understanding of aesthetic, musical and music-related kinds of praxis or activities of perception and experience in different theories of music education, and they relate this to the terms Bildung, learning and construction of symbols and meaning. Experts and guests from the audience illustrate their considerations with examples from the DVDs and with explained examples.

<p>Musical improvisation is an infinite artistic well. It helps the musician to make a personal performance and lets the music reflect the inner feelings. It is a language with which the performer can adapt the formulation to the specific situation. Yet so many have fear and respect when facing the phenomenon. In this study Dan Alkenäs discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using musical improvisation as a pedagogical method in school education. During a semester Alkenäs has, together with music teacher Bitten Löfgren and a group of pupils, studied what results are to be expected when teachers let musical improvisation have a leading role in music lessons. He discusses the creative working environment and the pupils’ ability to put theory into practice. One leading theme is the discussion of the common view of musicality. Alkenäs argues that it is important for a music teacher in a democratic school, with children from different kinds of cultures and backgrounds, to be flexible and adjust the lessons according to the individuals in the group. The study shows that this pedagogy, among other things, has a positive effect on interaction between students with different interest, levels of knowledge and potentials.</p>

The purpose of this study is to present a performance guide for singers on twelve selected songs in Brazilian Portuguese for voice and piano by Brazilian composer, pianist, and arranger Edmundo Villani-Côrtes (b.1930). Since 1949, Villani-Côrtes has been active in the musical scene of Brazil. He has a unique compositional style that seamlessly combines elements of both art music and popular music. Villani-Côrtes’s body of works includes over two hundred compositions for solo instrumental music, orchestral music, choral music, and art song. He has written over sixty songs in Brazilian Portuguese, including the Ciclo Cecília Meireles (1987), winner of the 1988 Prize of the Associação Paulista de Críticos de Arte (A.P.C.A.), but most of these remain unpublished. This performance guide is the result of three years of research, study and personal communication between the author, Villani-Côrtes, and poets whose words the composer used as lyrics. It offers a comprehensive body of information relevant for both the performer and voice teacher who approach this new and untraditional repertoire. It includes a concise biography of the composer, biographical information for the poets, comments on the compositional style of Villani-Côrtes, an overview of the Brazilian Portuguese International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)—with a chart of Brazilian Portuguese Sounds, IPA transcriptions with English word-by-word translations and poetic versions of all the lyrics, comments from the composer and the poets on each of the songs, and the technical information, pedagogical suggestions, and interpretative insights provided by the author.

Academic research in the area of music and learning has proven that there is both a deficiency and need for classroom music education commencing at the primary grade levels. The research has shown that by incorporating music education into the academic curriculum the arts can be more effectively taught and other academic subject areas can gain from the diverse teaching strategies the arts bring to education. There are two goals of this project. One is to demonstrate to teachers what primary grade level students should be learning in music. A second goal of this project is to design a music education handbook for primary teachers that can serve as a basis for intergrating music into the curriculum. This handbook takes into consideration the general lack of sufficient teacher training in music instruction, along with teaching time constraints, and potential roadblocks, such as the acquisition of music and instrumental supplies.

Before 1933, Erwin Bodky actively participated in musical life in Berlin. When he was a student, the Prussian Government had given him grants in 1920 and 1921 to study with the distinguished composers Richard Strauss and Ferruccio Busoni. His international performing career was launched when, at the last minute, Bodky was asked to replace a pianist for a performance with Wilhelm Furtwängler. When he became a professor at the Staatlich Akademie für Kirchen- und Schulmusik in Charlottenburg in 1926, he immersed himself in early music, performing on harpsichord and clavichord and founding his own collegium musicum. His publications, Der Vortrag alter Klaviermusik (Berlin: Hesse, 1932) and Das Charakterstück (Berlin: Vieweg, 1933), promised a future wealth of scholarship. However, in 1933, Bodky was expelled from his teaching position because he was a Jew. After officials came to seize part of his instrument collection, he and his family fled to Amsterdam, where they were in exile for five years. In 1938, he managed to escape Europe by securing a position at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Bodky would become one of the most important proponents of early music in the United States. Over the last twenty years of his life, he promoted historical instruments, performance practice, and forgotten early music repertoire. His many accomplishments in the United States include the founding of the Music Department at Brandeis University and the Cambridge Society for Early Music, the introduction and promotion of the collegium musicum, and the publication of the treatise The Interpretation of Bach’s Keyboard Works (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960). This thesis provides the first detailed examination of his influence in the United States. His roles as performer, scholar, and teacher are each explored. Relying upon unpublished archival material, academic records, memoirs, and numerous concert programs in addition to Bodky’s published writings, this study reveals that Bodky had a significant impact on how early music was performed, taught, and received in the United States.

Giuseppe Concone's piano études number over a hundred, and are collected in seven various sets. They consist of pieces for elementary, intermediate, and advanced level pianists. A few of them have been printed in anthologies but most of them remain unknown. The present research consists of two parts: an overview of Concone's complete sets of piano études, and a detailed analysis of Op. 30, with a detailed focus on articulation, balancing, voicing, and interpretation. First is a brief overview of the Études Opp. 37, 46, 24, 25, 31 and 34. Then in the analysis of Op. 30, after explaining the salient features of this set of études, there is an illustration of the method by giving an analysis of each étude. Concone's Vingt Études Chantantes Op. 30 are a fine supplement of teaching repertoire for the intermediate piano students. The Op. 30 incorporates a diversity of technical requirements and musical merits that can help students transition from intermediate level to early-advanced level. They may also contribute to being aware of binary and ternary forms, and prepares students for learning other genres of the 19th century piano literature.