The Heart's Portrait is a twelve movement composition for SATB choir and string quartet. The eight poems selected as the text for this work were penned by the eminent American poet Emily Dickinson. The text for the first movement, Dickinson's poem "If I can stop one Heart from breaking," succinctly describes the themes she commonly expounded upon in her writings: life, love, aching, pain, and purpose through faith. The remaining seven poems were chosen because they also explore these elemental themes. The main poem returns in variation throughout the piece, resulting in a modified rondo. To complement the four-part consort of voices, I selected a consort of strings in the form of a string quartet. The role of the quartet varies throughout the work from subservient to the vocal part, to dominant of the entire texture, to an equal partnership with the voices; these relationships are dictated by the text. Throughout the movements, I was able to explore a range of compositional techniques, both traditional and contemporary, while maintaining the primary purpose of unifying the text and music. This paper illustrates the initial compositional decisions made to begin the piece, the texts chosen and their placement within the work, the poet's history as it relates to the composition, a brief discussion on composers who have set Dickinson's words, and a thorough analysis of the work itself.

American mezzo-soprano, Beverly Wolff has not received the credit or respect that she deserves in operatic history. Her career began in 1952 and flourished until her retirement from the stage in 1981. Her intense characterizations, innate musicianship, and intelligence made her one of the most sought-after performers from the 1950s to the 1970s. For thirty years, she worked with some of the operatic world’s finest musicians, including Leonard Bernstein, Gian-Carlo Menotti, Samuel Barber, Ned Rorem, Beverly Sills, Norman Triegle, Placido Domingo, among others. She was represented by Columbia Artists Management Inc (CAMI), one of New York’s oldest and most prestigious management companies, and maintained an active performance schedule that often included operatic, concert, and recital performances in the same week. She trained at the American Vocal Academy in Philadelphia and was inducted into its Hall of Fame. She performed in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, New Orleans, and Atlanta and was an active member of the New York City Opera, Handel Society, Tanglewood, and the Handel Society of Washington, D.C. Wolff is credited with over sixty recordings. She also appeared on several of NBC’s live operatic programs, which brought opera to the masses. Perhaps most importantly, she created and debuted several important roles in American opera. Few have heard of her; the purpose of this document is to fill in this gap in operatic history, and to clarify and correct misinformation about her. In this document, I will answer the following questions: What determines a performer’s worth? What secures a performer’s place in history? Finally, and more specifically, what imprints did Beverly Wolff leave for posterity?

There are numerous widely varying vocal styles and voice qualities in Western music. Popular music in the 21st century uses a particular voice quality for female voice that is quite different from the trained classical voice quality. Classical voice quality has been the subject of a vast body of research, whereas research that deals with non-classical voice quality and pedagogy is very limited. In order to learn more about these issues, the author chose to do research using a variety of standard voice quality tests to substantiate the existing literature, and perhaps generate new information. This thesis presents a review of the existing literature on voice quality in various different styles of singing: Classical, Belt, Legit, R&B, Jazz, Country and Pop. In addition, this thesis looks at spectral measurements from a small set of voice samples, elicited from a professional soprano. Laryngographic (LGG) data was generated simultaneously with the audio samples. To limit the data set for the scope of this thesis, singing samples using the vowel [i] are selected_ The analysis techniques used in this thesis are Spectrogram, LPC, FFT, and various LGG ratio measurements. The spectral measurements compared include the relative strength of the first two harmonics, the formant locations, relative energy from harmonic strength near the formants, summed energy in two quadrants (0-3000Hz, 3000-5000Hz), and the inharmonic or aperiodic activity seen in each quality. Data from the LGG is used to calculate the contact quotient (the time the vocal folds are in contact divided by the time for one cycle of the vocal fold vibration), speed quotient (the time between maximum contact of the vocal folds and vocal fold separation divided by the time between first contact and maximum contact) and ascending slope (the slope of the contacting phase of the vocal fold wave). The LGG waveform was also visually assessed. The acoustic and LGG data are compared to an auditory analysis by Dr. John Esling (Professor of Linguistics, UVic) and to the subject's descriptions of the physical configurations involved in producing these qualities. Physiological observations obtained from x-ray fluoroscopy & MRI scans of belt and classical voice qualities are included in Appendix B. The intention of the thesis is to reveal more about the workings of these voice qualities. The thesis also serves as a prototype for a series of 10 vowels and running samples that were elicited at the same time. Perhaps, even though this thesis presents a limited data set, it may be useful to pedagogues who are struggling to understand the complexities of the non-classical female voice, as well as to computer programmers and engineers who are developing voice enhancement devices and biofeedback tools.

For Unto Us is a one movement work for soprano and orchestra. The text, by the composer, describes the thoughts and feelings of Mary, the mother of Jesus, as she watches the crucifixion. Mary's process of faith is traced through the sequence of dramatic events which proceed and follow the crucifixion. The work explores symbolic instrumentation, juxtaposition of harmonic languages, and extended techniques for performance and notation. The setting of the text combines traditional operatic idioms with new elements in the music. The duration of this dramatic, quasi-operatic scene is approximately nine minutes.

Now All the Fingers of This Tree is a work in two movements based upon a poem of the same name by E. E. Cummings. It is divided into two movements: The first movement is scored for nine part solo soprano, where one performer records each of the nine vocal lines. The second movement is an electro-acoustic work derived from four phrases of the original recording of the first movement. Total duration of the work is approximately 19 minutes. The paper provides a detailed analysis of both movements as well as a discussion on usage of text, problems addressed with traditional notation techniques, and technology utilized in the production of the work.

Reconstructions is a nine-movement composition for solo soprano, chorus, and wind ensemble using texts from several of Emily Dickinson's poems. The soloist represents the main character in this dramatic work, and the narrative structure portrays abstract moments in this character's life. While the narrative structure of the reconstructed fragments is important to the form of the composition, other elements are also significant. Pitch structures generated from set theoretical systems, in addition to cyclic and palindromic structures are utilized throughout. Timbre also delineates the form, as various combinations of instruments and chorus create an evolving environment in which the soloist resides.

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Benjamin Britten is one of the foremost contemporary English composers. He has successfully revived English opera, dead since Purcell, and this is one of his most significant contributions to the contemporary music world. Therefore, the purpose of this document is to give the reader some insight into Britten' s operatic style. The first chapter contains a sketch of Britten's life with particular reference to his operas, along with general characteristics of his writing. The following chapter has been devoted to a closer consideration of four of his2 operas: Peter Grimes, ;Theof. Lueretia, Albert Herring, and Gloriana. Since an analysis of entire operas would exceed the limitations of this paper, the soprano role has been selected as representative of Britten's operatic style. The vocal score of Turn of the Screw was not available for this study, and his other operas do not contain soprano roles. With each analysis a brief synopsis of the plot is included as a background for the musical analysis. Following the plot is a general treatment of the outstanding style features of the role. In order to present another facet of Britten's writing, the specific analysis of each soprano role is handled from a thematic standpoint. That is, the role is scrutinized for important recurring motives, the significance of these motives is noted, and examination made of their relationship to the opera as a. whole. Reti's Thematic Process in Mlusic has proved an invaluable guide to this type of analysis.

As human population grows and develops, more urban areas are expanding. Urbanisation has many impacts on the natural environment and one understudied pollutant is artificial light at night. The aims of this thesis were to examine the impacts of street lighting on bats and investigate the exposure of British bat species to artificial light at night and explored the mitigation option of part-night lighting. The current exposure of British bat species to artificial lighting was assessed using roost locations and population sizes from a long-term dataset (1997-2012) from the Bat Conservation Trust’s National Bat Monitoring Programme on seven bat species (Eptesicus serotinus, Myotis nattereri, Pipistrellus pipistrellus, P. pygmaeus, Plecotus auritus, Rhinolophus hipposideros and R. ferrumequinum). These data were combined with satellite imagery in roost sustenance zones and home ranges. Bat roosts were found in areas with brighter light levels than random locations for P. pipistrellus, P. pygmaeus and Plecotus auritus. Species that forage around streetlights (P. pipistrellus and P. pygmaeus) had significantly higher light levels in the landscape around their roosts than species which avoid street lit areas (R. hipposideros, M. nattereri and P. auritus). Colony size was negatively correlated with light levels. This study highlights that different species have different requirements in the landscapes around their roosts. To investigate landscapes effects of artificial light at night on the understudied light avoiding species R. ferrumequinum, eight maternity roosts were surveyed to explore the interaction between habitat features and street lighting. At each maternity roost, bat detectors were deployed at 25 paired street lit and dark locations. Street lighting had a significant negative effect on bat activity. Locations closest to the maternity roost had higher bat activity than those further away and road type had a significant effect on bat activity, with the highest bat activity recorded at minor roads compared with A and B roads. These results highlight the large negative impact street lighting can have on bat activity patterns and the need for mitigation. Several mitigation strategies have been suggested to combat the effects of artificial light at night but few have been tested. One of these suggestions is to restrict the hours of lighting through the night, often called part-night lighting. Part-night lighting has been implemented by many local authorities, often switching the lights off after midnight and switching them back on before dusk. To explore the effects of part night lighting on bats, the hourly patterns of activity for R. ferrumequinum were studied. Bat activity was bimodal, with a peak in the first few hours after sunset followed by a smaller peak before sunrise. To capture more than 50% of bat activity during the dark period of the night, street lights would be required to switch off before 11pm. To explore this further, a before-and-after study of part-night lighting was conducted at towns across Devon. Following the conversion from full-night lighting to part-night lighting, switching street lights off at 2 am, there was a significant reduction in P. pipistrellus and a significant increase for P. pygmaeus and Nyctalus noctule activity. Although part-night lighting is not often operational during peak activity periods for bat species, reducing the duration of lighting at night has impacts on activity patterns for several species. This thesis shows that artificial light at night has impacts on bats across the landscapes around their roosts. Artificial lighting has impacts for species in different ways, depending on whether they forage around street lights or avoid street lit areas. For species that avoid street lit areas such as R. ferrumequinum, street lighting can have very significant negative impacts on the availability of areas around their roosts. This highlights the need for conservation measures to reduce impacts of artificial lighting. Although mitigation schemes such as part-night lighting may help to minimize impacts of nighttime lighting, more tailored schemes for bats should devised to achieve greater conservation impacts.