Sikh Sabad Kirtan as a Musical Construction of Memory

The performance of devotional music in India has been an active, sonic conduit where spiritual identities are shaped and forged, and both history and mythology lived out and remembered daily. For the followers of Sikhism, congregational hymn singing has been the vehicle through which text, melody and ritual act as repositories of memory, elevating memory to a place where historical and social events can be reenacted and memorialized on levels of spiritual significance. This dissertation investigates the musical process of Shabad Kirtan, Sikh hymn singing, in a Sikh musical service as a powerful vehicle to forge a sense of identification between individual and the group. As an intimate part of Sikh life from birth to death, the repertoire of Shabad Kirtan draws from a rich mosaic of classical and folk genres as well as performance styles, acting as a musical and cognitive archive. Through a detailed analysis of the Asa Di Var service, Shabad Kirtan is explored as a phenomenological experience where time, place and occasion interact as a meaningful unit through which the congregation creates and recreates themselves, invoking deep memories and emotional experiences. Supported by explanatory tables, diagrams and musical transcriptions, the sonic movements of the service show how the Divine Word as Shabad is not only embodied through the Guru Granth Sahib, but also encountered through the human enactment of the service, aurally, viscerally and phenomenologically.

The Voyage of Impressionism in Three Violin Recitals: To See the World in Different Colors

Impressionism serves as the transition between romantic and modern music. This dissertation examines the varying characteristics and colors of Impressionism in the works of late-romantic French composers, French Impressionistic composers, and composers with Impressionistic influence from countries other than France. Violin Sonata in g minor, L. 140 (1917) is the last work composed by Claude Debussy. The impressionistic characters in this work includes the ambiguous yet innovative and variant sonority and form. As a work also written in 1917, Ottorino Respighi's Violin Sonata in b minor is deeply rooted in Italian Romanticism. Some of the Impressionistic characters can be found in the second movement where the harmonies are in parallel motion. César Franck, a forerunner of impressionism, heavily influenced Debussy with the use of cyclic form. The Violin Sonata in A major (1886) is rich in harmonic language. Ernest Chausson's works mark the transition between Franck and Debussy. The Poème portrays a love story, Song of Love Triumphant by Turgenev. The work is a symphonic poem for violin and orchestra. The Mythes, Op. 30 (1915) by Karol Szymanowski is based on Greek mythology. Ravel's Sonata for Violin and Cello (1922), dedicated to Debussy, points to the future with a sophisticated harmonic language extending into atonality, spare texture, and expanded palate of impressionistic colors and techniques. Ernest Bloch's Violin Sonata No. 1 (1920) portrays the feeling of torment. Beneath the soaring cries of the violin, the harmonic sonority of Impressionism are present. Gabriel Fauré's Violin Sonata No. 1 in A major, op. 13 (1876) is the earliest work of this project. The scherzo movement became a prototype for future scherzo movements for Ravel and Debussy. Ravel's Tzigane (1924), at once a paragon of French impressionism, a delightful gypsy-style dance-fantasy, and a breathtaking virtuoso piece, is the perfect conclusion to my dissertation project. The pieces discussed above were presented in three recitals. Compact disc recordings of these recitals are available in the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland.

Falling Out of the Sky

“Falling Out of the Sky” is a collection of poems, both formal and free verse, that explores an intimate familial landscape. In particular, these poems raise the question of what it means to be human through examinations of family mythology and its changes as bodies and memories become unreliable with time.