abstract: In My Dreams is a song cycle for mezzo-soprano, narrator, and piano, based on the poetry of survivors of childhood sex trafficking. It was created to raise awareness of trafficking through music and poetry through the expression of individual dreams and voices. In My Dreams recounts the devastating loss of childhood and celebrates empowering words of survival. The poetry was collected in poetry workshops held in Calcutta and Delhi India in January 2009. After the poems were selected, translated, and edited, composer Dr. Gerard Yun set them to music. This document outlines the process of creating and performing this unique humanitarian cycle. It also includes the full score, poetry, and composer's notes. Topics discussed include: experiences in finding and collecting poetry; collaboration with the composer, Dr. Gerard Yun; form and structure of the cycle; how each piece was molded to give voice to its inspired poem. Every song is analyzed from both a musical and performance perspective to give an account of the challenges and triumphs of the work and the process of undertaking it, as well as a better understanding of the background leading to its composition. / Dissertation/Thesis / Prologue / My Special Place / In My Dreams / Sometimes in the Night / I Thought I Wore the Watch Last Night / It's 2pm / I Can Hear Them / Create Another Earth for Me / In My Dreams II / Postlude / D.M.A. Music 2010

Les prétentions esthétiques de la série télévisée Les Soprano nous ont convaincu qu’elle s’inscrit dans une période significative de l’histoire des médias : la migration du cinéma et la de littérature vers la sérialité télévisée, avec tout ce que cela implique de transformations sociale, esthétiques et économiques fondamentales. Nous mettrons cette période en parallèle avec celle du cinéma du vingtième siècle et du roman du dix-neuvième siècle, afin de montrer que l’œuvre est habitée, de manière aussi bien volontaire qu’involontaire, par certaines contradictions multidimensionnelles inhérentes aux mutations de l’industrie culturelle. Ces contradictions impliquent la contamination pathologique du récit par l’interruption et la répétition, connotant une passivité fondamentale de l’Homme moderne. / The aesthetic pretensions of the television series The Sopranos have convinced us that it is part of a significant period in the history of the media: the migration of cinema and literature towards televised seriality with all that this implies of social, aesthetic and economic transformations. We will put this period in parallel with that of the twentieth century cinema and the nineteenth century novel to show that the work is inhabited, both voluntarily and involuntarily, by certain multidimensional contradictions inherent in the mutations cultural industry. These contradictions imply the pathological contamination of the story by interruption and repetition, which connotes a fundamental passivity of modern man.

This document assesses the introduction of pants roles in opera and includes a historical overview to understand the background of these roles. This dramatic conceit concentrates on the development of the operatic art form from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries. In Italy during the seventeenth century, the castrato voice, which had been a crucial aspect of church music, was now developing a position in opera. Within this document, the castrati’s transition from sacred music to the opera, where lies the bulk of their success, will be studied. As opera expands rapidly throughout the music scene, the demand of singers, specifically castratis, grew. The document will also deal with the introduction of castrati operatic roles. Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice" is analyzed. Gluck’s opera exhausted several editions and demonstrates how the role Orfeo, as well as other castrati roles, evolved once castrato slowly went extinct. The terms referring to cross-dressing roles, and their specific repertoire, as well as the process in which women came to assume these roles will also be discussed. The shift from male to female in operatic repertoire is examined, as well as the traditional pants role for women in opera. The document will also discuss the pants role Cherubino as an example. This is the embodiment of a young boy in love, experiencing the admiration of a woman for the first time, as well as the vulnerability of his feelings for a woman. Cherubino’s arias are analyzed as well as a description and explanation of his possible intentions while singing his arias will communicate the subtext of the character. This document also discusses similar characters in Italian and French repertoire. The German repertoire for pants roles is separately presented and is based on the role of Octavian in Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier. It is interesting that although the roles of Octavian and Cherubino were developed centuries apart, it is possible to compare similarities between the characters, from their creation, librettists’ perception and the composers’ execution in their compositions. This analysis was intended to exhibit the evolution of the pants role in opera and how writing current pieces for women in pants is an entirely different challenge as it was in previous centuries. In an attempt to expose different viewpoints on the subject, these questions will be addressed. The characters addressed so far are the pants; when a woman represents a male character. Meanwhile, there is a discussion about how a pants roles should be classified, although the pants role is the representation of a man played by a woman, she is not attempting to convince the audience that she is a man. The alteration of sex of a character when it is visible to the audience, and the conversation of categorizing a pants role; for example, the role of Leonore in Beethoven’s Fidelio, is debatable.

This thesis surveys a variety of songs and arias for high soprano which feature the nightingale; examines the musical elements that symbolize, refer to, or imitate the nightingale; and compares these musical elements with transcriptions of the nightingale's song. The first chapter reviews the symbolic development of the nightingale and its role in poetry and literature. The interior chapters address a selection of musical compositions that feature the nightingale and its song. The final chapter establishes a relationship between the sound of the actual sound of the nightingale and the musical gestures created by composers to imitate the nightingale.

Johann Gottlieb Naumann ist einer der wenigen Hofkapellmeister am kurfürstlich-sächsischen Hof, der auch aus Dresden stammt. Er wurde am 17. April 1741 in Blasewitz bei Dresden geboren. Nach einer entbehrungsreichen Jugend und frühzeitigen musikalischen Ausbildung in Italien übertrug die hochmusikalische Kurfürsten-Witwe Maria Antonia Walpurgis bereits dem 23jährigen Naumann das verantwortungsvolle Amt als Kirchen-Compositeur in einer desolaten Lage der musikalischen höfischen Kultur. Naumann hat den Text – die Arie des Arpago aus Metastasios »Ciro riconosciuto«, Wien 1736 – nochmals vertont. So sind mehrere Abschriften eines Duettes für zwei Soprane und Basso continuo in Venedig und Padua überliefert. Eine Datierung des Werkes ist ungewiss, es gibt aber zwei indirekte Hinweise auf eine mögliche Entstehungszeit. 1778 erschien die Canzonette »Ecco quel fiero istante« nach Metastasio für zwei Violinen, Sopran und Basso1, neben dem vorliegenden Werk die einzige Canzonette mit Begleitung mehrere Instrumente. Weitere Gesänge auf italienische Texte für Solostimme und ausschließlicher Klavierbegleitung gehen auf das Jahr 1769 zurück. Naumann war mit Johann Adolf Faustinus Weiss, dem Sohn von Silvius Leopold Weiss, befreundet, der seit 1763 bis zu seinem Tod 1814 als Kammerlautenist an der Dresdner Hofkapelle verpflichtet war. Er kann als Interpret infrage kommen.

Am 8. Dezember 1747 feierte die sächsische Kurfürstin und polnische Königin Maria Josepha (1699–1757) ihren 48. Geburtstag. Zu diesem Anlass verfasste ihre Schwiegertochter Maria Antonia Walpurgis den Text der Kantate »Che ti dirò Regina«. Die sächsische Kurprinzessin hatte den ältesten Sohn des Herrscherpaares, Friedrich Christian (1722–1763), im gleichen Jahr geheiratet und war im Juni nach Dresden gekommen.

Am 8. Dezember 1747 feierte die sächsische Kurfürstin und polnische Königin Maria Josepha (1699–1757) ihren 48. Geburtstag. Zu diesem Anlass verfasste ihre Schwiegertochter Maria Antonia Walpurgis den Text der Kantate »Che ti dirò Regina«. Die sächsische Kurprinzessin hatte den ältesten Sohn des Herrscherpaares, Friedrich Christian (1722–1763), im gleichen Jahr geheiratet und war im Juni nach Dresden gekommen.

Ocean of Forms is a cycle of five songs for solo soprano voice and electronic/computer music accompaniment on poems by noted Bengali poet, musician, philosopher, and author Rabindranath Tagore. This work approaches the song cycle as a vehicle for expressing and highlighting the poet's words. Word and syllabic stress, text painting, melodic development, and formal structure all function in relation to the text and its meaning. the replacement of the traditional piano accompaniment with electronic accompaniment provides further possibilities for new timbral structures and transformations, expressive microtonal intonation, algorithmic and aleatoric formal structures, acousmatic and spatialized sound, and a broad sonic palette. This work strives to provide a more fully developed expression of the text as afforded by these expanded musical means. the critical essay primarily explores the interaction between text and music in the work. the first chapter explores the historical precedents for the genre of the song cycle and other texted music as well as specific influences on the work. the following chapters explore the connections between the text and the vocal line and electronic/computer music, respectively. the final chapter deals with the formal structure of the work, especially the justly-tuned harmonic scheme and its relation to the text.

Am 8. Dezember 1747 feierte die sächsische Kurfürstin und polnische Königin Maria Josepha (1699–1757) ihren 48. Geburtstag. Zu diesem Anlass verfasste ihre Schwiegertochter Maria Antonia Walpurgis den Text der Kantate »Che ti dirò Regina«. Die sächsische Kurprinzessin hatte den ältesten Sohn des Herrscherpaares, Friedrich Christian (1722–1763), im gleichen Jahr geheiratet und war im Juni nach Dresden gekommen.

Am 8. Dezember 1747 feierte die sächsische Kurfürstin und polnische Königin Maria Josepha (1699–1757) ihren 48. Geburtstag. Zu diesem Anlass verfasste ihre Schwiegertochter Maria Antonia Walpurgis den Text der Kantate »Che ti dirò Regina«. Die sächsische Kurprinzessin hatte den ältesten Sohn des Herrscherpaares, Friedrich Christian (1722–1763), im gleichen Jahr geheiratet und war im Juni nach Dresden gekommen.