Keiko Abe's contributions to the contemporary marimba repertoire have been a milestone in the development of the marimba as a solo concert instrument. Besides the creation of a new repertoire through commissions and her own compositions, Abe's contributions to the marimba include the improvement of the sound quality of the marimba and the establishment of the five octave instrument as the standard concert marimba. During the last four decades, Abe's compositions have been performed and studied worldwide and become standard literature for the marimba. Abe has written more than sixty compositions for marimba, including concertos, duets and solo pieces. The goal of this dissertation is to provide a comprehensive method for the performance and preparation of two major Keiko Abe's compositions, Marimba d'Amore composed by Abe in 1998 and Prism Rhapsody for Marimba and Orchestra composed in 1996. This dissertation will discuss theoretical as well as performance issues related to these two compositions. Each piece is discussed with regard to its distinctive compositional approach and inherent performances issues. In order to provide the reader an explanation of the compositional procedures used by Abe, specific directions for the performance and preparation of these two works are offered.

Master of Music / Department of Music / Frank C. Tracz / This report contains lesson plans as well as a theoretical and historical analysis of the literature performed in the Graduate Conducting Recital of Veronica Kongs. The recital was held in the Satanta Junior/Senior High School Auditorium in Satanta, Kansas on Tuesday, May 8, 2007 at 7:00 p.m. The recital featured performances by the Junior High and High School Concert Bands. Literature for the Junior High Concert Band included Korean Folk Rhapsody arranged by James Curnow and Riders on the Southern Front by Roland Barrett. The Junior High/High School Concert Band literature consisted of For Thy Courts Above by Ed Huckeby and Of Dark Lords and Ancient Kings by Roland Barrett. This report utilizes two analytical methods, the Larry Blocher/Richard Miles Unit Study model used in the Teaching Music through Performance in Band Books and the Frank Tracz approach of macro-micro score analysis.

Dans la Chine du IIIè siècle, les mutations politiques et intellectuelles considérables survenues après l’effondrement des Han favorisent l’éveil d’une conscience inédite de l’individu, ainsi que l’émergence de nouvelles tendances philosophiques (le néo-taoïsme de l’Étude du Mystère) et l’apparition d’une activité artistique en rupture avec la tradition qui s’est imposée durant quatre siècles d’hégémonie confucéenne. La musique, qui occupe une place d’élection dans la vie des lettrés, voit évoluer le statut et la pratique auxquels elle était jusqu’alors confinée, l’outil moralisateur au service de la concorde sociale s’affirmant désormais comme une distraction libre et privée, affranchie de ses finalités politiques et civilisatrices. Notre travail prend pour objet les conceptions de la musique qui ont vu le jour dans ce contexte de l’avènement esthétique et d’une valorisation sans précédent des émotions individuelles. En nous concentrant plus particulièrement sur Ruan Ji 阮籍 (210-263) et Ji Kang 嵇康 (223-262), figures de proue de la pléiade des Sept Sages de la Forêt de Bambous et éminents poètes, philosophes et musiciens, nous avons cherché à étudier la réflexion esthétique qui s’élabore dans leurs écrits autour des questions de l’origine et la nature de la musique, de ses fonctions morales et sociales, de son utilisation politique ou macrobiotique, de ses vertus éthiques ou diététiques, ou encore de son lien aux émotions. L’analyse textuelle est complétée par celle de pratiques ou de gestes musicaux : le sifflement chez Ruan Ji, la cithare chez Ji Kang, qui donnent corps aux discours et illustrent leur mise en œuvre concrète dans la vie de ces auteurs. De sorte que l’esthétique ne se définit plus seulement comme un discours, mais aussi comme un ethos, et que l’effort d’affranchissement de la musique est contemporain d’une d’émancipation des sujets mêmes de l’expérience esthétique. / In third-century China, the huge political and intellectual mutations occurring after the collapse of the Han dynasty result in the awakening of a new self-consciousness of man and the emergence of new philosophical trends (the so called Dark Learning), or also an artistic activity breaking off with four centuries of Confucian orthodoxy. Music, which occupies a privileged position in the life of literati, evolves as well, as far as its traditional status and practice are both concerned. No more considered a tool of moralization for the sake of civilized order or social harmony, it becomes a private and free distraction, emancipated from political or any other pragmatic purpose. The conceptions of music appearing in this context of nascent aesthetics provide the subject matter of our research. Focusing on Ruan Ji 阮籍 (210-263) and Ji Kang 嵇康 (223-262), two leading figures of the well-known literati group “the Seven Sages of the bamboo grove” who were also famous poets, thinkers and musicians, we attempt to examine their aesthetic thought throughout their main writings on music, concerning issues such as the origins and nature of music, its moral or social functions, its political or macrobiotic use, its ethical or dietetic virtues, and also its relation to man’s emotions. The textual analysis is completed by the study of musical practices or gestures (Ruan Ji’s whistling, Ji Kang’s playing the zither), that illustrate the effective application of their ideas in concrete life. Therefore, aesthetics does not only consist in a mere discourse, but becomes a kind of ethos, in which the emancipation of music is inseparable from that of the individual himself, through his aesthetic experience.