Date of Defense

11-23-2024

Date of Graduation

4-2025

Department

Music

First Advisor

Robert White

Second Advisor

Scott Thornburg

Abstract

We must keep discovering pieces by underrepresented composers. For example, playing pieces by underrepresented composers in music classes at public schools is important. If the students do not see their identities represented in the curriculum, it is more difficult to picture themselves in a potential career. Students must see themselves being represented in their curriculum to expand the student’s full potential later in life. A hidden curriculum is something not in the curriculum. If something is not part of a curriculum, students will start to conclude that the subject does not matter and is not worthy of learning whether it is music from different parts of the world or even issues, such as LGBTQ and racism. This term was coined by scholar Eisner who identifies three types of curriculums in school: overt curriculum, hidden curriculum, and null curriculum (Cahapay). It is crucial to keep discovering new pieces along with the standard band repertoire. In this honors thesis, I will be discovering a piece by an underrepresented composer.

Russian composer Aida Petrovna Isakova was born on March 23, 1940, in Volodymyr, Ukraine. She died on March 24, 2012, in Moscow, the capital of Russia. She was a composer, pianist, and pedagogue. She graduated from the Krasnodar Music College located in Krasnodar, Russia (Southwestern Russia) where she studied piano and theatrical composition. In 1964, she graduated from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory where she studied piano and composition. She studied piano with Victor Merzhanov, a remarkable Pianist and teacher in the Soviet era. She also studied with Evgeny Golubev, a Soviet and Russian composer, while at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory. In 1964, she taught at a conservatory in Kazakhstan where she was part of the piano department. In 1994, she taught at the Ippolitov-Ivanov State Music Institute in Moscow, Russia. She has performed in Finland, Bulgaria, South Korea, the United States of America, Greece, and other countries. Her husband was a bass player, and her daughter was a pianist. Her compositions include a symphony, ballets, operettas, and several concertos. Aida Isakova wrote Sonata for Trumpet and Piano for the trumpet professor, Yury Klushkin, at the conservatory in 1986. This piece was not published until 2009. The only available recording of this piece, currently, is by trumpeter Iskander Akhmadullin. The genre of the Sonata for Trumpet and Piano was neglected in Soviet-era Russia, until Georgi Orvid, a trumpet professor at the Moscow Conservatory, popularized trumpet sonatas in Russia. He did so by playing works by Hindemith and other Western composers. Aida Isakova has collaborated with People’s Artist of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). People’s Artist of the USSR is an honorary title that is granted to Soviet Union artists (2024). She collaborated with Alibek Dnishev, an opera singer and Soviet singer born in 1951. She also has collaborated with Ermek Serkebayev, a baritone singer born in Kazakhstan in 1926. Isakova has also collaborated with People’s Artist of the Kazakh SSR Yevgeny Isakov. When Isakova performed abroad, she performed with various orchestras as well as performing solo programs.

In this next section, I will provide an analysis that consists of historical context when possible. I will also use the Concept of Sound, Harmony, Melody, Rhythm, and Growth (SHMRG), which is a concept that shows up in Guidelines for Style Analysis by Jan LaRue, an author who also wrote articles on Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (LaRue, 1981). Sound entails instrumentation, range, tessitura, special effects, mutes, texture, dynamics, and other similar components. Harmony entails tonality versus atonality, coloristic harmony, extended chord structures, modulations, quartal versus quintal, and polytonal versus bitonal. Melody entails phrase lengths (regular versus irregular), the type of intervals, angular versus melodic, scalar versus nonscalar, and pointillism. Rhythm entails the meter, meter shifts, phrase structure, polyrhythms, et cetera. Growth entails how the piece is put together, what form it is in, climatic point(s) and how they develop and succeed, modality, and mood/style.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9f4alSTXN4&list=PPSV&t=1s

Access Setting

Honors Thesis-Open Access

Additional Files
Student Recital_ Avery Molnar, Trumpet.mp4 (154453 kB)
Avery Molnar Trumpet Recital
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