MA, Kent State University, 2019, College of the Arts / School of Music, Hugh A. Glauser

In 1996, the first collegiate South Asian A Cappella Group, Penn Masala, was founded at the University of Pennsylvania. Over the last twenty-two years, nearly fifty such groups have been founded at colleges and universities across the United States. These ensembles blend western popular music with South Asian music, namely Bollywood film songs. Membership in these groups typically involves participants with South Asian ethnic backgrounds as well as participants from various other ethnic backgrounds. This thesis explores the ramifications and outcomes between the multifaceted essence of South Asian A Cappella and the multifaceted ethnicities of its members, showing how identities are blended, reinvented, and performed in both musical and social settings. This research ultimately culminates in a discussion of the balance between ethnicity and nationality and how music is a perfect stage to perform such internal diversity. It also comments on agency within music, questions what is considered fusion, and discusses the way competition assigns value to performance in inconsistent ways.

Committee: Jennifer Johnstone PhD (Advisor); Eve McPherson PhD (Committee Member); Susan Roxburgh PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Asian Studies; Ethnic Studies; Music

DMA, University of Cincinnati, 2009, College-Conservatory of Music : Conducting, Choral Emphasis

F. Melius Christiansen (1871-1955) created a pioneering American a cappella choral ensemble, the St. Olaf Choir, which influenced an entire philosophical school of choral performance within the United States. His body of choral literature has been utilized as a significant part of secondary and post-secondary choral education, and his music is amongst the most performed American composers of his generation. This document is a conductors' guide to selected Christiansen repertoire. The literature selected displays his diversity of genres and compositional styles, and represents his most integrous work. This document will explore eleven compositions in detail, Beautiful Savior, Built on a Rock, Celestial Spring, How Fair the Church, Lamb of God, Lost in the Night, Lullaby on Christmas Eve, O Day Full of Grace, Praise to the Lord, Psalm 50, and Wake, Awake. For each piece the document will include origins of source materials, structural graphs with phrase analyses, guides to obsolete words and pronunciations, employment of choral forces within divisi, issues of tempi and rubato, and other preparatory suggestions for the prospective conductor.

Committee: Brett Scott (Committee Chair); Earl Rivers (Committee Member); Ray Wheeler (Committee Member) Subjects: Music