• The Extra-Musical Elements Involved in Achieving A Successful Public Piano Recital 

  Yang, Zhouya (North Dakota State University, 2024-07)

  The purpose of this thesis is to help piano players achieve a successful recital by analyzing extra-musical elements. By combining my live piano performance experience with an analysis of popular pianists’ live performance ...

• An Examination of Selected Chinese Ethnic Choral Music from Inner Mongolia, Yunnan Province, and Central Plains Area 

  Cheng, Kewen (North Dakota State University, 2024)

  The landscape of choral music in modern China is characterized by a rich and varied repertoire, despite its relatively brief history within the nation. Diverging from the trajectories of traditionally Christian countries, ...

• Political Activism Through Music for Piano: A Performer’s Guide to Interpreting the Ideology in Frederic Rzewski’s (1938-2021) North American Ballads (1979) and Cornelius Cardew’s (1936-1981) Thälmann Variations (1974) 

  Langer, Michael Jorge (North Dakota State University, 2022)

  Political music is an emerging and relevant phenomenon. These works can pose challenges to performers in terms of understanding and interpreting their nuanced historical and political ideology. This dissertation is about ...

• The Development and Dissemination of the Collaborative Piano Program from the United States to China 

  Wei, Xiang (North Dakota State University, 2021)

  For over 71 years, the collaborative piano major has been one of the most important music performance programs at American universities and conservatories, such as the University of Southern California, the Julliard School ...

• From Paintings to Opera: Discovering the Reimagination of William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress in Igor Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress 

  Ng, Hong Liang (North Dakota State University, 2022)

  The Rake’s Progress (1951) is a well-known satirical opera in three acts with an epilogue by Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), with a libretto written by Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973) and Chester Kallman (1921-1975). This opera ...

• Cornets, Creativity, and Celebration: The Life and Works of Virtuoso Cornetist Alessandro Liberati (1847-1927) 

  Ward, Byron (North Dakota State University, 2022)

  Alessandro Liberati (1847–1927) lived during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when music for solo cornet was one of the most popular musical outlets in America. He and many performers of this instrument ...

• Championing the Lives and Works of American Women Artists: a Performance Guide to Libby Larsen’s Song Cycle Mary Cassatt (1844-1926): Seven Songs for Mezzo-soprano, Solo Trombone, and Orchestra (With 15 Projections of Cassatt’s Paintings) (1994) 

  Tlusty, Catherine (North Dakota State University, 2022)

  Libby Larsen (b. 1950), one of America’s leading composers, has written in nearly every genre of classical music. Among her catalogue of vocal music are choral works, operas, art song, and song cycles. Larsen’s song cycles ...

• The Rehearsal Plan and the Preparation of Brazilian Art Songs: An Autoethnographic Study in Collaborative Piano 

  da Silva Gonçalves Santos, Elisama (North Dakota State University, 2020)

  The objective of this research was to investigate the effectiveness of the rehearsal plan in the preparation of Brazilian art songs. This disquisition proposes a rehearsal plan model based on the concept of the class plan ...

• A Choral Conductor's Analysis and Performance Practice Recommendations for Selected Psalm Settings by German Baroque Composers 

  Rolf, Kathryn Anita (North Dakota State University, 2020)

  Psalm settings by German Baroque composers are comprised of meaningful texts illuminated by expressive music and have much to offer today’s choir. The composers of these settings were inspired by the Old Testament psalm ...

• Reaching Arcadia: Rural and Agricultural Themes in Vocal Art Music including Plans to Introduce this Music to a Rural Audience 

  Oberlander, Erin Marissa (North Dakota State University, 2011)

  Throughout the history of Western Music, composers have written works on rural and agricultural subjects. The first half of this dissertation examines a number of important works from the Baroque era through the present ...

• Art Songs by French Composers on Subjects Related to Venice, with Particular Emphasis on Reynaldo Hahn’s (1874-1947) Venezia (1901) 

  Raad, Tyler (North Dakota State University, 2019)

  Venice, Italy has received a considerable amount of attention throughout the centuries from French poets, painters, and composers. However, little scholarship exists to date that has drawn any definitive connection between ...

• The Role of the Chorus Master in Three Contemporary Operas Addressing Social Conflict: A Dramatic Analysis of Poul Ruders’ (b. 1949) The Handmaid’s Tale (1998), Jake Heggie’s (b. 1961) Dead Man Walking (2000), and Kevin Puts’ (b. 1972) Silent Night (2011). 

  Latterell, Richard Allan (North Dakota State University, 2019)

  In opera, the opera chorus actively shapes the dramatic structure through interactions with the soloists, commentary after events, and momentum provided toward scene endings. Since the chorus traditionally represents the ...

• Conducting the Coded Message Songs of Slavery: Context, Connotation, and Performance Preparation 

  Raber, Rebecca Lynn (North Dakota State University, 2018)

  The coded message songs of slavery are a mysterious and fascinating entity. Within the lyrics of these seemingly innocuous plantation songs are coded messages for escape, messages that provided secret information to enslaved ...

• Selected Larger Choral Works of F. Melius Christiansen (1871-1955) 

  Toliver, Nicki Lynn (North Dakota State University, 2011)

  F. Melius Christiansen (1871-1955) composed four larger choral works between 1917 and 1925. The Reformation Cantata, composed in 1917, commemorates the 400th anniversary of Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation and the ...

• The Inception of Trumpet Performance in Brazil and Four Selected Solos for Trumpet and Piano, Including Modern Performance Editions: Fantasia for Trumpet (1854) by Henrique Alves de Mesquita (1830-1906); Vocalise-Etude (1929) by Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959); Invocation and Point (1968) by Osvalda 

  Miranda, Clayton Juliano Rodrigues (North Dakota State University, 2016)

  This disquisition provides a modern performance edition of four Brazilian compositions for trumpet and piano by Henrique Alves de Mesquita’ (1830–1906) Fantasia para Piston [Fantasy for trumpet, 1854], Heitor Villa-Lobos’s ...

• A Stylistic Analysis of Tom Flaherty’s (b. 1950) Works for Clarinet 

  Dizon, Rachelle (North Dakota State University, 2018)

  Composer Tom Flaherty (b. 1950) received a 2016 Grammy award nomination for his piece Airdancing for Toy Piano, Piano and Electronics (2013) in the category of Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance. He has also ...

• The Choral Music of Frederick Delius (1862-1934) and its Influence on the Choral Music of Early Twentieth-Century British Composers 

  Strommen Campbell, Jonathan Daniel (North Dakota State University, 2015)

  The composer Frederick Delius wrote a large body of choral music including choral/orchestral works and part songs. This body of choral music had an important influence on the younger generation of British choral composers, ...

• The Tyger and the Lamb: Exploring the Relationship Between Text and Music in Selected Contemporary Choral Settings of Two Poems by William Blake (1757-1827) 

  Zinter, Erik Andrew (North Dakota State University, 2015)

  Texts have been influencing composers of choral music for centuries. Some composers manipulate the text through the use of form and compositional technique, whereas others rely on highlighting specific words. Still others ...

• John Field's Piano Concerto No. 1 

  Walker, Mary Ermel (North Dakota State University, 2015)

  While there are recordings of all seven of John Field’s piano concertos, there are no two-piano versions published that include the transcribed orchestra in the second piano part, with the exception of the second concerto. ...

• Folk Song in the Wind Band Music of Haydn Wood: Mannin Veen and a New Performing Edition of the Seafarer 

  Hollingsworth, Adam Charles (North Dakota State University, 2015)

  Nestled between England and Ireland, one can find a tiny island called the Isle of Man, or more simply, Mann. One of its most famous musical representatives is composer and violinist Haydn Wood. In an effort to preserve ...

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