TALLY HORN! ECHOES OF HOOFBEATS AND HAUNTS: RECORDED SELECTIONS FOR HORN AND PIANO

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the European hunting horn was an instrument associated with the thrill of the chase, rustic scenes, and the pageantry of royal hunts. The sound of this horn and the music that evolved from its heritage would inspire composers writing for the modern horn. TALLY HOrn! Echoes of Hoofbeats and Haunts: Recorded Selections for Horn and Piano are two compact discs of works for horn and piano as well as solo horn reflecting this association with the hunt and include additional works of expressive contrast – lyrical pieces and nocturnes. Nine of the pieces reflect the modern horn’s beginnings and they are Abbot’s Alla Caccia, Berge’s Horn-Lokk, Boutry’s Chassacor, Bozza’s En Fôret, Büsser’s La Chasse de St. Hubert, Pessard’s In the Forest, Piantoni’s Air de Chasse, Schmid’s Im Tiefsten Walde, and Vinter’s Hunter’s Moon. By contrast, three of the selections, Gliére’s Nocturne, Strauss’ Nocturno, and Van Ecchaute’s Nachtpoëma are nocturnes that showcase the expressive quality of the horn. In addition, Bush’s Autumn Poem, Bacon’s Song After the Rain, and Webber’s Summer Pastures are included for their lyric qualities and evocations of nature. The largest work of the project is John Williams’s Concerto for Horn. Its five movements feature both hunting horn traits and expressive qualities. Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez and Grace Cho were the two pianists engaged for the recording. The recording engineer was Edward Kelly. The producer was Carlos Rodriquez. The pieces were recorded at the Spencerville Seventh-day Adventist Church sanctuary in Spencerville, Maryland between November 2010 and February 2011.

W.A. Mozart's Die Zauberflöte An Arrangement and Performance Edition for Wind Instruments and Vocal Soloists

The purpose of this dissertation is to produce a new Harmonie arrangement of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte suitable for modern performance, bringing Joseph Heidenreich’s 1782 arrangement—one of the great treasures of the wind repertoire—to life for future performers and audiences. I took advantage of the capabilities of modern wind instruments and performance techniques, and employed other instruments normally found in the modern wind ensemble to create a work in the tradition of Heidenreich’s that restored as much of Mozart’s original thinking as possible. I expanded the Harmonie band to include flute and string bass. Other instruments provide special effects, a traditional role for wind instruments in the Classical opera orchestra. This arrangement is conceived to be performed with the original vocal soloists, making it a viable option for concert performance or for smaller staged productions. It is also intended to allow the wind players to be onstage with the singers, becoming part of the dramatic action while simultaneously serving as the “opera orchestra.” This allows creative staging possibilities, and offers the wind players an opportunity to explore new aspects of performing. My arrangement also restores Mozart’s music to its original keys and retains much of his original wind scoring. This arrangement expands the possibilities for collaboration between opera studios, voice departments or community opera companies and wind ensembles. A suite for winds without voices (currently in production) will allow conductors to program this major work from the Classical era without dedicating a concert program to the complete opera. Excerpted arias and duets from this arrangement provide vocalists the option of using chamber wind accompaniment on recitals. The door is now open to arrangements of other operas by composers such as Mozart, Rossini and Weber, adding new repertoire for chamber winds and bringing great music to life in a new way.

Essays on Matching Markets and Their Equilibria

Matching theory and matching markets are a core component of modern economic theory and market design. This dissertation presents three original contributions to this area. The first essay constructs a matching mechanism in an incomplete information matching market in which the positive assortative match is the unique efficient and unique stable match. The mechanism asks each agent in the matching market to reveal her privately known type. Through its novel payment rule, truthful revelation forms an ex post Nash equilibrium in this setting. This mechanism works in one-, two- and many-sided matching markets, thus offering the first mechanism to unify these matching markets under a single mechanism design framework. The second essay confronts a problem of matching in an environment in which no efficient and incentive compatible matching mechanism exists due to matching externalities. I develop a two-stage matching game in which a contracting stage facilitates subsequent conditionally efficient and incentive compatible Vickrey auction stage. Infinite repetition of this two-stage matching game enforces the contract in every period. This mechanism produces inequitably distributed social improvement: parties to the contract receive all of the gains and then some. The final essay demonstrates the existence of prices which stably and efficiently partition a single set of agents into firms and workers, and match those two sets to each other. This pricing system extends Kelso and Crawford's general equilibrium results in a labor market matching model and links one- and two-sided matching markets as well.

The Sword and the Pen: Life Writings by Militant-Authors of the Việt Minh and Front de Libération Nationale (FLN)

This dissertation examines four life writings by militant-authors of the Việt Minh and Front de la Libération Nationale (FLN): Ngô Văn Chiêu’s Journal d’un combattant Viet-Minh (1955), Đặng Văn Việt’s De la RC 4 à la N 4: la campagne des frontières (2000), Si Azzedine’s On nous appelait fellaghas (1976), and Saadi Yacef’s two-volume La Bataille d’Alger (2002). In describing the Vietnamese and Algerian Revolutions through the perspectives of combatants who participated in their respective countries’ national liberation struggles, the texts reveal that four key factors motivated the militants and led them to believe that independence was historically inevitable: (1) a philosophical, political, and ideological framework, (2) the support of multiple segments of the local population, (3) the effective use of guerrilla and psychological warfare, and (4) military, moral, and political assistance provided by international allies. By fighting for the independence of their countries and documenting their revolutionary experiences, the four militant-authors leave their mark on the world using both the sword and the pen.