Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

3738

Date

2016

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Musical Arts

Major

Music

Concentration

Performance

Committee Chair

Janet Page

Committee Member

John Baur

Committee Member

Ken Kreitner

Committee Member

Mark Ensley

Abstract

The subject of this dissertation is the song cycle Night Dances by Juliana Hall. The cycle contains six songs based on poetry by female poets: "The Crickets sang," and "ASpider sewed at Night" by Emily Dickinson, "Some Things Are Dark" by Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Song," and "Sleep, mourner, sleep!" by Emily Bronte, and "Sonnet" by Elizabeth Bishop. Chapter one is an introduction containing information about the premiere of Night Dances and a biography of Hall. Chapter two discusses the history of the song cycle as a genre and introduces Night Dances, gives reception history for the cycle, offers insight into how Hall chose the poetry, and introduces the techniques and sounds Hall used to create a cohesive cycle. Chapters three through eight provide detailed analysis for each of the six songs. Chapter nine discusses how Hall fits into the new era of song cycle composition, and explores not only the challenges of a twentieth-century composer, but how Hall has discovered self-publishing as a viable alternative for distribution of her music.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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