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.

SELECTED AMERICAN VIOLIN WORKS AND THEIR EUROPEAN CONTEXT

For my dissertation, I did a study and performance of American violin works by Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, and John Corigliano, along with contemporaneous European works by Paul Hindemith, Bela Bartok, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, and Francis Poulenc. The selected American violin works display the development of a distinctively American style and cover a significant formative period (1914-1963) of American classical music. I intend that the European works form a backdrop for setting in relief any distinctly American qualities possessed by the American works. This is because they cover a similar time period and have significant stylistic affinities and shared influences. My topic stems from a question, "What defines the American Sound?" I attempted to find the answer by looking at the time when American composers consciously searched for their identities, and declared their music to be distinctly American. I found that those distinctive qualities stemmed from three sources: folk music, jazz and hymns. Ives and Copland can be viewed as American in content for their inclusion of such elements, while Bernstein and Corigliano can also be considered as "ideologically American" for their adventurous and eclectic spirit. The simplicity derived from singing a hymn or crooning a popular song; the freedom inspired by jazz; the optimism of accepting all possibilities-these elements inform the common spirit that I found in the music of these four American composers. FIRST RECITAL Sonatafor Violin Solo Op.3112 (1924), Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) Suite Italiennefor Violin and Piano (1932), Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) Sonatafor Violin and Piano (1963), John Corigliano (b.1938) SECOND RECITAL Second Sonatafor Violin and Piano (1914-17), Charles Ives (1874-1954) First Rhapsody for Violin and Piano (1928), Bela Bart6k (1881-1971) Violin Sonata No.1 infminor (1938-46), Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) THIRD RECITAL Nocturne for Violin and Piano (1926), Aaron Copland (1900-1990)Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 119 (1942-3, rev.1949), Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)Serenade (after Plato's "Symposium'') (1954) by Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) The pianists were Sun Ha Yoon (Bart6k) and Grace Eunae Cho (all other repertoire).

RUSSIAN THREADS: THE PRESENCE OF RUSSIAN INFLUENCES IN TWENTIETH­ CENTURY ENGLISH CELLO MUSIC

A cursory glance at cello works by English composers during the twentieth- century yields an unexpected relationship to Russian musicians, history, culture, and religion. One must wonder how this connection or "Russian thread" came to be. When considering the working relationship of Benjamin Britten and Mstislav Rostropovich, the likelihood of such a connection is tangible, since their deeply personal friendship influenced Britten's music for cello. However, what is perhaps more interesting is the emergence of connections to Russia in the works of other English composers of the twentieth-century, featuring works from 1913-1996. This project was conceived after close study and analysis of Benjamin Britten's Third Suite for Solo Cello, Op. 87 (1971). Britten's inclusion of Russian folk tunes and an Orthodox Church hymn signaled the penetrating presence of Russian elements in his works. Britten's First Suite for Solo Cello, Op. 72, Third Suite for Cello, Op. 87, and Sonata for Piano and Cello in C, Op. 65 are presented in this project. Further exploration of works for cello by English composers unveiled similar connections to Russia. The Sonata for Cello and Piano of Frank Bridge is likened to Russian romanticism and the Cello Sonata of Sergei Rachmaninoff. William Walton's Cello Concerto was written for the Russian-American cellist Gregor Piatigorsky. Wake Up ...and die is John Tavener's deeply spiritual work, which is rooted in his Russian Orthodoxy. John Ireland, influenced by models of French and Russian Impressionism, contributed works colored with Russian folk influences, of which his Piano Trio No. 2 is an example. Finally, Arnold Bax traveled to Russia as a young man and his Folk Tale and Legend Sonata are imbued with the spirit of Russian folk music and architecture. This dissertation project is comprised of three recitals featuring English works for cello connected by a "Russian Thread." All events took place on the campus of University of Maryland, College Park: Recital #1 on December 4, 2011 in the Gildenhorn Recital Hall of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Recital #2 on February 11,2012, and Recital #3 on April 15, 2012, both in the Ulrich Recital Hall.