Josh Oxford wrote the Luminous Mysteries Rosary Sonata in 2022 on commission from the violinist Esther Witherell. The piece continues in the Rosary Sonata tradition begun by Heinrich Biber while also incorporating contemporary composition styles and violin techniques, most notably the use of dynamic scordatura. The formidable challenges involved in realizing the written score make the provision of a performance guide with a semi-tablature notation of the violin part all but essential. This document serves as a guide to future performers of the Luminous Mysteries Rosary Sonata. The paper provides the historical background for its composition, supplies information from the composer regarding Biblical allusions in the piece, and suggests solutions to common technical difficulties. The appendix consists of the semi-tablature violin part with at-pitch notation from the composer and as-fingered notation from the author.

The purpose of this lecture-recital is to explore the Protestant Reformation’s effect on the lives of a selected number of composing organists who were active in the field of church music before, during, and after the Reformation. The organists were selected based on the prominence of their positions and the significance of their compositions in the history of the organ. The lecture thus focuses on their employment situations and the repertoire they created. Jan Pieterszoon Sweelick is one of the most extreme examples of changed employment due to the Reformation. Trained as a Catholic organist, and taking up his position at the Oude Kerk Amsterdam at the age of 19, Sweelinck was forced to adapt quickly when the city converted to Calvinism within that same year. He became the civic organist, playing daily recitals on the organ instead of liturgical music, which was prohibited by the Calvinists. Because of his background in music and his compositional inclinations, Martin Luther created a liturgy that was much friendlier to musicians than was that of Calvin. Lutheranism fostered many fine organist-composers, culminating in the music of J.S. Bach. Early in the Reformation, Hans Kotter was fired from his position in Catholic Fribourg due to his Protestant leanings. Samuel Scheidt also suffered because of religious turmoil. He published three extraordinary volumes of organ music, entitled Tabulatura nova, in 1624, but the onset of the Thirty Years War cost him his employment. His final compositions are simple chorale harmonizations, reflecting the upheaval of the Reformation and the War. In Catholic Italy and Spain, where Reformers never gained a strong foothold, Marco Antonio Cavazzoni and Antonio de Cabezón were able to continue their work with little change. Due to the nature of their work and instruments, organists stand at the nexus of religion, economics, politics, and art. This lecture-recital seeks to reveal these relationships following the Reformation. These significant organist-composers provide case studies for how the changing religious and political climates of the Reformation affected the work of organists and the music they composed.

William “Count” Basie (1904-1984) is one of the most beloved and imitated figures in American music. His name has long been ubiquitous among jazz scholars, critics, and practitioners. Basie’s sparse, minimalistic piano idiolect is immediately recognizable, and the 4/4 swing aesthetic of his Kansas City-born jazz orchestra is a cornerstone of the big band idiom. “Stories and Significations” critically examines prevailing narratives about Basie’s biography and musical output, many of which have not been substantively reconsidered since the 1980s. Through an interdisciplinary synthesis of methods ranging from Afrodiasporic modes of musical analysis, archival research, critical historiography, and African American literary theory, this project serves to enrich Basie’s legacy while also critiquing the mythology surrounding it. By signifying on the traditional “Life and Music” paradigm of jazz biography, in “Stories and Significations” I use preexisting scholarly and critical discourses as points of departure for critique while also offering scholars and practitioners new ways to write, talk, and think about Basie. In doing so, I bring Basie, the stories of his life, and the Significations in his music into the rich scholarly discourse of the New Jazz Studies that has added such valuable depth and detail to the legacies of numerous other figures in jazz history such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Miles Davis.

This project aims to produce repertoire that will help bridge the gap between classical music and jazz, particularly focusing on some of the obstacles that female classical saxophonists face when playing jazz. By commissioning six new works for saxophone and piano written by female jazz composers, this project facilitates an entry-level experience with improvised materials that will help break down this barrier for interested saxophonists. The compositions are From A to Z: Two Women’s Journeys by Ayn Inserto, Sunlit Dream by Annie Booth, Taking Flight by Katelyn Vincent, Des-Dunes by Sam Spear, Jogo by Yoko Suzuki, and Impromptu by Aida De Moya. For each work, this project provides recordings, performance guides, improvisation guides, biographical contents, and program notes. I hope to encourage young female saxophonists to explore their interests in jazz without fear or reservation through performance of these pieces.

Only in recent decades have music libraries become more aware of the importance of preservation of musical scores and materials in their collections. It follows that the preservation goals in a library differ from those in a museum due to the specific purpose of the collecting institution. As a student of paper conservation in an art museum setting and a musician with classical training, I wanted to investigate the scope of art conservation as it applies to cultural heritage objects outside the realm of works of visual art in a museum—namely the musical scores and ephemera contained in the Bavicchi archive in the ASU Music Library Special Collections. The archive is a large, unexplored collection of materials pertaining to approximately ninety opuses composed by the teacher, conductor, and composer, John A. Bavicchi (1922-2012). These materials include final scores, drafts of scores, preliminary sketches, programs from performances, correspondence, news publications, publishing agreements, and financial records. Although these types of ephemera materials are transitory by nature and pose considerable problems for the institution responsible for their preservation, the goal of this project is to demonstrate the importance of preserving non-art objects related to non-visual artforms in a music library context, to show the value of musical ephemera in general, and to advocate for the care of the Bavicchi archive in particular. Using one Bavicchi composition, Opus 51, as a case study from which to develop a protocol for the preservation of the rest of the archive, I made an inventory of all seventy-four objects pertaining to Opus 51, executed and documented conservation treatment, and implemented proper housing for all objects. Making sure to consider how and where these archival materials are most likely to be used—for scholarly research in a music library—I established guidelines for evaluating condition and assigning treatment priority, provided descriptions of relevant remedial treatment procedures, and recommended rehousing and potential preservation practices. Additionally, I offered justification for my conservation work through the contextualization of the archival materials relating to Opus 51. I provided an initial musical analysis of the archival materials and compared the informational content of the Opus 51 ephemera to general information gathered from outside sources, with the intention of illustrating the need to preserve these materials in order to better understand Bavicchi’s compositional process and the public reception of his work.

Organ culture of the late nineteenth century played an important role in the development of cities on the American Western Frontier. By 1869, the transcontinental railroad connected cities across the United States, enabling coast-to-coast travel and spawning a new tourist industry. Rail travelers stopping in Utah frequently visited the Tabernacle and were impressed by the organ, requesting to hear it played. The Salt Lake Tabernacle free daily organ recital program was initiated to meet that demand. This came at a critical time in the growth of the city as it sought to develop a positive image of itself. These organ recitals became a highlight of travelers’ journeys across the United States, shaping the image of Utah as a place of culture and refinement. Although free daily organ recital programs sprang up across the country during the early twentieth century, very few persisted for more than a decade. Today, the only two remaining continuous free daily organ recital series are given on the Salt Lake Tabernacle organ and on the Wanamaker organ in Philadelphia. Location, promotion, purpose, and programming were key factors vital to the early and continued success of the program. At a time when attendance is in decline for organ recitals, and indeed for all classical art music, the elements of this uniquely successful program may suggest new approaches for sharing organ music.

Many filmmakers have explored the sonic possibilities offered by experimental, avant-garde, and modernist music as it prospered in the mid-twentieth century. Fascinatingly, horror cinema, with all its eerie subject matter, has championed the use of experimental music in its films. Since the silent-film era, horror has stood much to gain by deviating from the normative film scoring standards developed in Hollywood. Filmmakers indebted to horror continually seek new sounds and approaches to showcase the otherworldly and suspenseful themes of their films. Numerous movies that challenged the status quo through transformative scoring practices achieved distinction among rival films. The rise of auteurist films in the 1950s further instigated experimental practices as the studio system declined and created a space for new filmmakers to experiment with aesthetic strategies. Film music scholarship has paid relatively little attention to the convergences between experimental concert music and horror scoring practices. This topic is crucial, especially horror’s employment of existing experimental music, as it has played a critical role in American filmmaking in the second half of the twentieth century. My thesis traces the relationship between horror cinema and experimental music. I survey the use of experimental music throughout the history of horror films and examine the scores for three films: William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973), Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), and Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island (2010). With my case studies of these three films, I aim to fill a significant gap in film music scholarship, highlight the powerful use of experimental music textures and timbres and demonstrate this music’s significant role in cultivating new scoring practices that succeed in engaging, unnerving and shocking audiences of horror cinema.

This thesis examines the role of advocacy and social justice in the music of three living American women composers, and the ways their efforts as mentors, patrons, academics, and educators interact with their work as composers. Case studies include Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1972), Missy Mazzoli (b. 1980), and Jennifer Jolley (b. 1981). My musicological narrative is informed by Kimberly Francis’s concept of women as “cultural mosaics” and Patricia Hill Collins’s theorization of intersectionality, which addresses the junction of variable characteristics (such as race, gender, or class) as they relate to an individual’s identity. I have centered my narrative on social issues these composers address through their activism and their music. Gabriela Lena Frank’s orchestral work, Peregrinos (2009), emphasizes Frank’s value of community outreach and her interdependence on others. Frank uses folklórica traditions and Latin mythology to musically recognize the diverse experiences of Latin American immigrants living in Indianapolis. Missy Mazzoli blends operatic traditions with electronics to convey messages of female empowerment in Song from the Uproar: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt (2012). Mazzoli’s characterization of the fascinating life of this nineteenth-century woman resonates with modern understandings of intersectionality and agency, and aligns with her work with the Luna Composition Lab. Jennifer Jolley’s approach to musical activism in Prisoner of Conscience (2017) mirrors her philosophical and political messages explored on her blog and e-magazine articles. Juxtaposing punk rock with church motets and madrigals, Jolley comments on the nature of protest and the punishment of Russian feminist punk group, Pussy Riot. I position these composers as cultural agents with diverse concerns and diverse means by which to voice them. Frank, Mazzoli, and Jolley each participate in valuable extra-musical roles outside of their compositions: from Gabriela Lena Frank’s Creative Academy of Music, to Mazzoli’s Luna Composition Lab, to Jolley’s NewMusicBox articles. Each of these composers negotiate agency within traditions that have not always been open to women, and they seek to further remedy race and gender inequities through their prominent positions as educators and composers.

The percussion ensemble pieces of the 1930s and 1940s have many performance practice and instrumental selection considerations when performed in the modern day. The four pieces of music under consideration for this study are Ionisation (1933) by Edgard Varèse, Ostinato Pianissimo (1934) by Henry Cowell, First Construction (In Metal) (1939), and Third Construction (1941), both by John Cage. These works have stood the test of time, and are still an important part of today’s percussive literature. As with many historical works, issues such as interpretation and instrument selection arise when performed in the twenty first century. This project aims to provide general considerations and specific solutions when preparing these works for performance. The research conducted in this paper will help percussionists and musicologists alike further understand how to properly replicate the early percussion ensemble music, if the performers objectives are to emulate the composers’ original intentions.

In Arizona part-time instrumental music educators often spend more time per week with high school students than full-time core subject teachers. Members of the gig economy and heavily involved in the marching arts, these part-time teachers make the conscious choice to seek multiple gig positions to piece together a full-time income void of traditional employee benefits. The COVID-19 pandemic is changing the American workforce, prompting employers to hire more gig workers than standard salaried employees across all industries. However, some part-time workers who rely on social interactions for income are struggling to maintain a career throughout the health crisis. Although unable to see their students in person and prepare for competitions like a normal season, part-time instrumental music educators are continuing to work and teach. Whether each teacher is explicitly aware of it or not, the entire part-time teaching community relies on the accrual and mobilization of social capital to secure and maintain gigs and, by extension, a living. In this thesis, I employ Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of capital to investigate how part-time instrumental music educators are adapting to virtual remote teaching prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic and why they have not experienced job loss to the same extent as many other Americans in this arduous time. Through participant-observer ethnography and direct interviews with 12 active part-time instrumental marching music teachers I analyze not only the social mechanisms that lead to career success but also how each teacher conceptualizes their own vocational narrative. Unlike the idealized “American Dream” narrative of hard work and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, part-time teachers attribute their success to social relationships and luck. As Arizona prepares for a harsh decline in music student enrollment over the next five years due to the pandemic part-time music educators must be aware of how to encourage their students to become the next generation of teachers and how they can work to overcome the daunting privilege gap in musical ensemble participation.