Master of Music / Department of Music / Julie Yu-Oppenheim / Teaching a large performing ensemble class, such as choir, can make it difficult to keep a record of each student’s individual progress. This report will discuss my philosophy of music education along with ways to incorporate technology into student assessment. Technology can most benefit the educational process when it is easy and efficient. Through personal experience, incorporating technology into student assessment can be done in the four different methods explored in this report. These four methods are: integrating practice file submissions through a virtual interface; using Google Docs Surveys for self-reflection; incorporating audio or video recording students for sight-reading tests; and using YouTube for students to post videos for final projects. Each has the potential to both strengthen and organize the way student assessment is completed.

Master of Music / School of Music, Theatre, and Dance / Julie Yu / This document examines five choral octavos for a themed choral concert. The McPherson High School Concert Choir will present a themed choral concert, “War and Peace”, which includes these five octavos, on October 14, 2013 at 7:30pm. The selections reflect the program theme and include historical and theoretical analysis. Along with the analysis, this document also contains rehearsal plans and examines common practices of selecting and preparing literature for a themed choral concert. The choral octavos examined are: The Sword of Bunker Hill arranged by Matthew Armstrong, Lift Up Your Heads arranged by Hal H. Hopson, Down By The Riverside arranged by Rosephanye Powell, Tell My Father arranged by Andrea Ramsey, and Joshua Fit The Battle of Jericho arranged by Mark Hayes.

This study presents a survey of selected Contemporary Swedish Choral Composers and Literature representative of the trends in contemporary Swedish choral music. The varied compositional styles and techniques of composers Sven-David Sandstrom, Thomas Jennefelt, Karin Rehnqvist and Andres Hillborg exemplify these trends. Little information is readily available about the current generation of choral composers outside of Sweden. Most of the available materials concentrate on the music of composers of the 1940s Monday Group such as Sven-Erik Back and Ingvar Lidholm and Karl-Birger Blomdahl, the works of Gunnar Bucht of the 1950s who reacted against modernism, the 1960s avant-garde styles of Bengt Hambraeus, Sigfriend Naumann, Arne Mellnas and Folke Rabe. This survey discusses the life, career and musical styles of each of the composers and analysis of an a cappella work illustrative of their musical styles. Fundamental to the growth and musical development of the representative composers is an examination of the historical background, foundation and tradition of choral singing in Sweden. The select bibliography, list of works by the composers, catalogs of choral music, list of institutions and organizations, and publishers, is intended to serve as a reference guide.

This study discusses Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's appointment to the Prussian Court of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, Mendelssohn's relationship with the Court (both personal and professional) and the numerous difficulties encountered with this appointment. In addition, Mendelssohn's musical responsibilities and personal feelings toward the cities of Leipzig and Berlin, Berlin's choral traditions (including a brief history of the Berlin Domchor) will also be discussed. Mendelssohn's op. 78, op. 79 and Die deutsche Liturgie written for the Berlin Domchor reflect the sometimes competing demands of the traditional liturgical genres (e.g. Masses, psalms, motets), which are more "objective" in nature and the far more "subjective" elements inherent in the Romantic "ideal" of expression. This study deals exclusively with the unaccompanied choral compositions written for the Berlin Domchor with particular emphasis given to op. 78 - Drei Psalmen, and op. 79 - Sechs Spruche.

This project focuses on the relationship between plainchant notation and the conducting gesture in the Quatre Motets Sur Des Themes Gregoriens, Op. 10 of Maurice Durufle. Durufle's intimate knowledge of the chant practices of the Solesmes school of chant interpretation is a major influence in the compositional style of the four motets. This project explores the relevance of the Solesmes interpretational practices and their influence on Durufle's compositional technique. The conducting gesture employed in the realization of the motets must demonstrate an active knowledge of the compositional techniques employed and the Solesmes interpretational practices. As such the incorporation of traditional Gregorian Chironomy into a working gesture for use in the rehearsal and performance of the motets is the essence of this project.

English composer Gerald Finzi's (1901-1956) early life was plagued by the deaths of close friends and family, and the beginning of the first world war. Before his eighteenth birthday, Finzi lost his three brothers, his father and his beloved composition teacher. To mourn these deaths and perhaps as a reaction to the first world war, Finzi began to compose his Requiem da Camera (op. 3b, 1924). Finzi completed three movements of this four-movement work during his lifetime, and left sketches for the completion of the unfinished third movement. Beginning in 1984, Philip Thomas, with the blessing of the Finzi family and the Finzi Trust, began examining the extant sketches in an attempt to complete the unfinished third movement. Thomas completed and published his edition of the Requiem da Camera in 1992. After a careful examination of this completion, a number of editorial questions were raised. This document was created to address these questions. It sets out historical parameters to provide context for Finzi's original composition, goes on to describe the development of liturgical and non-liturgical requiem composition, and discusses the development of British non-liturgical requiem (and requiem-like) compositions in the twentieth century. Thomas's completed third movement is compared to Finzi's source material. Four major areas of discrepancy are presented and examined to bring the movement closer to Finzi's original compositional intent. The document concludes with a new completion of the third movement. It combines the work of Finzi and Thomas, along with information gleaned in the process of creating this document, the remainder of the original Finzi composition, and other of Finzi's compositions with similar qualities from this era.

This thesis presents research on an amateur composer-oriented Bach choir. Its main purpose is to study the development of musical identities and musical preferences of choir members as they take shape through the collective learning process of rehearsing and performing large-scale choral music. The study analyses how the choral participation and performance creates a certain type of ‘choral capital’ (a combination of social and cultural capital within the choral setting) and how the choristers reconstruct and relate to the composer (J.S. Bach) by creating ‘choral identities’ linked to the composer-orientation of their choir. This study is based on an interdisciplinary approach, seeking concepts and ideas from different fields of study – primarily sociology and music sociology (music in everyday life and the concepts of social and cultural capital in the amateur choral setting) but also music psychology regarding concepts of musical and vocal identities, history of music (especially Bach scholars, previous biographical writings about J.S. Bach), music and education (choral singing as informal music education) and interdisciplinary studies on music, health and well-being. The methodological approach of this research consists of a grounded theory based, single case study where the case was the Croydon Bach Choir in London performing J.S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor, using participant observation (where I sang with the choir for one semester) and qualitative interviews as main research methods and gathering demographic background data on choir members via paper-based survey. Whereas significant research on music performances has been conducted, so far choral research, where the direct participation of the researcher as a member of the choir is used as one of the main research methods, is still quite rare. Results indicate that participants develop socio-musical identity both through their choral participation in general, performance experiences and early music consumption in the family household and the emphasis of the importance of choral singing as a fulfilment instead of pursuing a professional career. Through choral singing, participants developed ‘choral capital’ through a) the effects of collective learning on their musical taste and preferences (thus broadening their musical taste and preferences and reconstructing the composer) and b) the well-being factor of collective singing and communal learning through the process of rehearsing and performing the Mass in B Minor. Furthermore, findings indicated that participants construct Bach as a genius and a devout Lutheran, an image that relates to the romantic image of Bach presented in the late 19th – early 20th century biographical writings on the composer. Thus in general, their choral activities form a valuable addition to their social and cultural capital (´choral capital´), which they use as a source of well-being in everyday life. In addition, participants create a certain ‘choral identity’ by relating to the composer-orientation of their choir; the promotional label of Bach as a synonym for quality choral singing and the emphasis of challenging repertoire.

Eva Jessye (1895-1992) was committed to disseminating music by African Americans through her choral concert performances and choral compositions. This study will examine and interpret Jessye's programming practices as identified in concert programs representing fifty-five years of her professional choral career. The analysis of the tenets of her programming found in printed programs available between the years 1927-1982 will provide a model that can inform choral musicians who plan to program and perform music by African Americans.

The minor choral works are those exclusive of the well-known choral works. Symphonic movements for chorus are also excluded. Conflicting and incomplete information from the composer himself and from secondary sources were principal research problems. The published letters, the memoirs, and a small number of secondary sources, containing little more than passing references, form the body of the research material beyond the scores themselves. The arrangement is by opus number, with unpublished works inserted chronologically by date of composition. A description of the circumstances surrounding each work' s composition precedes a study of the music within each chapter. The last chapter delineates stylistic characteristics of the minor choral works.

The art of transcribing orchestral accompaniments for organ is one of the most difficult problems which organists must face. Although a few will become professional recitalists, most organists will at one time or other have a church position and be required to play oratorios and other large choral compositions which were originally scored for orchestra. Several of the most popular of these works (Handel's Messiah, Saint-Saëns's Christmas Oratorio, Fauŕe's Requiem) have already been arranged for organ, but the majority are available only in piano reductions. The main body of the paper deals with this latter group of works, for it is here that the most urgent problems exist. However, some of the organ arrangements now available need considerable revision because they try to imitate the whole orchestra and are virtually impossible to play. Therefore, some preliminary comments on already existing transcriptions seem necessary.