Department of History & Literature
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“Passin’ the faith along" : a sonic history of the Gaither Vocal Band.
(2021-08-06)This dissertation presents a “thick history” of the career of Bill Gaither, to use Jennifer Lena’s term. While examining the Bill Gaither Trio and the Gaither Vocal Band, the principal performing groups founded by Bill ... -
Perceiving parallax : human agency in the changing nature, history, and influence of the Brazilian Baptist hymnal Cantor Cristão.
(2021-08-04)This dissertation is a cultural history and musical ethnography of the first Brazilian Baptist hymnal Cantor Cristão. Published in 1891, it was revised and expanded, and went through thirty-seven editions but remained the ... -
Is this my story? Is this my song? Exploring narrative dissonance in worship music through the lens of ludomusicology.
(2019-11-14)This thesis explores connections between ludomusicology, sociology of religious narratives, and church music studies in a larger context of the digital mediatization of music and culture. Analysis of cultural trends around ... -
Musical techniques in the compositions of Der wilde Alexander and Rumelant von Sachsen in the Jenaer Liederhandschrift.
(2019-04-23)The Jenaer Liederhandschrift is a large fourteenth-century manuscript that serves as the primary source for melodies of German medieval vernacular song. Although scholarship focusing on the poetic texts has enjoyed activity ... -
Church music through the lens of performance : the embodied ritual of sacred play.
(2018-06-11)Scholars who address religious music making in general, and Christian church music in particular, use “performance” in a variety of ways and under varying constellations of assumptions, creating confusion around the term ... -
Exploring homilies and hymnody : the thematic relationship between George Whitefield’s sermons and A Collection of Hymns for Social Worship.
(2017-11-14)This thesis examines George Whitefield’s A Collection of Hymns for Social Worship and presents a thematic analysis of the hymn book’s lyrical content. This research contributes to a fuller understanding of Whitefield’s ... -
The trombone as signifier in sacred germanic works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
(, 2017-10-09)During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Germanic composers recognized and propagated certain rhetorical associations of the trombone. Following a tradition of signification in sacred dramatic works, these composers ... -
The influence of poetry on the piano music of early twentieth-century France and England.
(2017-04-19)The turn of the century in France saw an increased intensity of interest in equating the arts of poetry and music. England experienced a similar trend. Debussy and Ravel were influenced by the Symbolist poets and their ... -
A comparative analysis of Frank Martin’s Ballade for flute and Ballade for trombone.
(2015-07-21)Swiss composer Frank Martin (1890-1974) wrote six single-movement pieces for six different solo instruments and accompaniment between 1938 and 1972, all titled Ballade. The Ballade for trombone (1940) and the Ballade for ... -
A history of music ministry at the United States Air Force Academy Chapel with an emphasis on Protestant worship, 1954-1984.
(, 2013-09-16)The primary objective of the United States Air Force Academy is to produce quality leaders that serve as officers in the United States Air Force. Many programs at the Academy help accomplish this goal, one of which is the ... -
Ecstatic Utterances explained : a companion to Ecstatic Utterances.
(, 2013-05-15)This paper provides technical and philosophical insight into the composition Ecstatic Utterances. Three distinguishing approaches feature in this thesis: strands, and their accompanying theory; harmonic crescendo and ... -
For such a time as this : classical music and 9/11.
(, 2012-11-29)This thesis takes as a foundational principle the conviction that music is a vital component of the process of mourning. From this foundation, I focus on three of classical music's responses to 9/11: John Adams' On the ... -
Composers as spiritual mediators : Henryk Górecki and John Luther Adams.
(, 2012-08-08)This thesis considers how composers act as agents of spiritual mediation. It examines two individuals of divergent philosophical and cultural perspectives. Henryk Górecki and John Luther Adams responded to twentieth-century ... -
Memory, identity, and farce in carnival mirrors : a director's approach to David Lindsay-Abaire's "Fuddy Meers".
(2010-06-23)American playwright David Lindsay-Abaire’s central subject of interest is a world turned upside down by hardship and pain. Although commonly labeled a dark farce, Lindsay-Abaire’s 1999 play, Fuddy Meers, is haunted by the ... -
The blending of African-American and European aesthetics in the guitar performance of British blues from 1965 to 1967.
(2010-02-02)British blues guitarists emerging in the mid-1960s incorporated a musical vocabulary which borrowed heavily from recordings of the modern blues' African-American, postwar originators. Crucial differences in the way the ... -
A discussion of the choral music of Samuel Barber.
(2008-08-25)Within the world of music history, choral music seems to drop off of the map with the end of the Baroque era, and only a handful of major works, such as masses and oratorios, are typically studied in an academic setting. ... -
Functions of film music and sound within a genre: the revenge western.
(2007-02-14)The music of two scenes from four revenge westerns made between 1956 and 2001 is analyzed for generic similarities possibly shared between the films. The thesis looks at how four directors and composers set similar dramatic ... -
Comparative repression: examples of musical repression by Hitler, Stalin, and Mao.
(2007-02-14)This thesis examines acts of musical repression conducted in Germany, Russia, and China under the governments of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. These countries and their repressive periods are compared in several different ways: ... -
Paul Simon's Graceland and its social and political statements on apartheid in South Africa.
(2007-01-11)Paul Simon's Graceland album is one of the most controversial rock-and-roll albums in history because of its strong connection with South Africa during the apartheid. Simon's interest in South African music led him to ...
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