Date of Defense

3-15-2020

Date of Graduation

4-2020

Department

Music

First Advisor

Karen Kness

Second Advisor

Rhea Olivacce

Third Advisor

Carl Ratner

Abstract

For my honors thesis, I used my Senior Voice Recital. When starting the process, I met with my thesis chair, Dr. Karen Kness to discuss which repertoire I wanted to perform for the recital. We focused on picking song selections ranging from the Baroque musical era to the mid- 1900s. As part of my requirement, I needed to select at least thirty-five minutes of music to present and this music needed to be in at least five different languages. Half of my repertoire was selected from my previous semester of Applied Voice lessons and the other half I learned over the past semester. I chose arias and art songs in the languages of English, Italian, German, Russian, French, and Latin.

In order to learn these pieces, I wrote in the translation of all the words into my music, as well as the pronunciation for each word. Next, I listened to professional recordings of the pieces to gain musical inspiration for how I wanted to present each piece. In addition, I had lessons once a week with Dr. Karen Kness to work out vocally technical problems in the pieces and had rehearsals with my pianist, Gunta Laukmane, once a week to practice my musicality, such as dynamics and character. In addition to my practicing outside of my lessons and rehearsals, I also completed research on each of my pieces and their composers. If the song was from an opera, I looked up a synopsis of the show and thought about how the scene I was singing from fit into the story. For the composer information, I looked up the dates of the composer, their major works, and their influence for composing the piece. With all this information, I wrote my program notes as my written assignment for my thesis. As part of my major I needed to submit these program notes to my committee to be reviewed and edited before I released them to the public.

In order to choose my committee for my thesis, I emailed a couple of the voice faculty members and asked them if they would be interested in joining my committee. I chose Dr. Carl Ratner and Dr. Rhea Olivaccé and both agreed to join. After my committee was chosen, I was required to present a hearing for the committee that I needed to pass in order to present my recital to the public. For my hearing, I was asked to bring a typed repertoire list for my recital. From this list, my committee members selected various pieces they wanted to hear me sing. I then received written feedback on the sheet I submitted from my committee members.

After I passed my hearing, I was given permission to present my recital in the Dalton Center Recital Hall on March 15, 2020. I coordinated and planned this date with the concert’s office in the School of Music. The week of the concert, I had my dress rehearsal for my committee chair, which included my pianist, duet partner, and violinist. Although I was unable to present my recital, I was given permission by the concert’s office to have it in the fall of 2020 and I am very excited to present my hard work.

Access Setting

Honors Thesis-Open Access

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