towards silos and smokestacks takes its name from the Silos and Smokestacks Heritage Area. In 1996, the northeast third of Iowa became a federally designated heritage area to pass on the story of American agriculture to younger generations. I spent much of my childhood growing up in Iowa. On my many trips through the state, two contrary aspects in the surrounding landscape caught my fascination. First, there are the vast cornfields that expand outwards for miles fading off beyond the horizon. Second, this countryside is home to countless grain silos and billowing smokestacks of small Midwestern cities. These monoliths can be seen miles away like small islands within Iowa’s rolling agricultural oceans. As I drew closer to these structures, they would slowly grow into colossal pillars giving a vertical, albeit fleeting, dimension to the scenery before disappearing once again into the distance. This piece is an attempt to juxtapose this sense of vastness and the monoliths that interrupt the sprawling “amber waves of grain” through the use of spatial aspects and ever expanding register.

Songs of Dusk and Renewal sets two poems from Alfred Edward Housman’s A Shropshire Lad (1896) for baritone voice and orchestra, with the intent to demonstrate the timeless significance of the text. Housman’s collection, largely explored by English composers in the first half of the twentieth century, remains a valid source for composers, yet the writings are seldom observed in recent music. In the present work, poems IV (“Reveille”) and XLVI (“Bring, in this timeless grave to throw”) are reconciled musically through deep constructs and surface attraction, while being informed by critical and historical perspectives. / text

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Summary: Without a doubt, Hans Krása belongs amongst the most important figures in Czech music. In my thesis, I would like to focus on his opera for children, Brundibar, which represents an important bridge between free cultural expression and life behind the walls at the Terezin concentration camp. Clearly, it will be fruitful to compare both the Prague and Terezin versions of this piece. With this work, I would like to delve into the personality of the composer, his output, and musical life in the Terezin ghetto. Key words: Analysis, Brundibar, holocaust, interpretation, opera, orchestra score, piano reduction, Terezin Ghetto, Terezin Initiative.