Considering Matthew Shepard: normative and anti-normative queer spatial narratives and the politics of performance in choral music

I present a cultural geographical analysis of the recent choral composition Considering Matthew Shepard. I explore the cultural, musical, and emotional geographies of this piece of music, in terms of its content and my experience of rehearsing and then performing the piece as a member of the choir. Drawing on cultural geography, musical geography, and queer theory, I argue that the memorializing of Matthew Shepard’s killing through this musical setting both repeats and challenges the normative popular and academic framings of Shepard’s murder and, more generally, queer critiques of the memorialization and historicization of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer pasts. I explore this by examining three spatial themes in Considering Matthew Shepard: its representations of (1) Wyoming, (2) the fence (where Shepard was left by his assailants), and (3) universality. I also point to what musical geographies might gain in looking more closely at choral music performance.

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Predoni a casa nostra e il geografo solidale: Massimo Quaini tra terra e acqua

Il pensiero critico fra geografia e scienza del territorio - Territori ◽

10.36253/978-88-5518-322-2.11 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 157-153

Author(s):

Francesco Vallerani

Keyword(s):

Cultural Geography ◽

Personal Narrative ◽

Civil Commitment ◽

Environmental Sensitivity ◽

Humanistic Geography ◽

Emotional Geographies ◽

Peculiar Character ◽

Shed Light

In accordance with the main goals of this collection of essays in honour of Massimo Quaini, the text focuses on a peculiar character of the Ligurian geographer’s sensibility, his attention to landscape protectionresearch activity developed in the context of the humanistic geography. Starting from a personal narrative based on his own reminiscences and neglected memories, the author tries to shed light on the relationships between civil commitment and cultural reflection which characterize environmental sensitivity, bringing together his interests with Quaini’s emotional geographies. Finally, some of Quaini’s everyday practicalities are highlighted as the easiest doorway to improve the cognitive procedures of cultural geography.

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Spaces and Times of Québec in Two Films by Xavier Dolan

Nottingham French Studies ◽

10.3366/nfs.2016.0148 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 55 (2) ◽

pp. 189-208 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Bill Marshall

Keyword(s):

North America ◽

Queer Theory ◽

Cultural Geography ◽

Introductory Section ◽

The Way

After an introductory section which places the film career of Xavier Dolan within the context of the transnational and other changes that have affected Québec cinema since 2000, this article seeks to explore two of his films, Laurence Anyways (2012) and Tom à la ferme (2013), by bringing together insights from queer theory, cultural geography, and Foucauldian analyses of space and power. The space of the cinematic frame is explored in conjunction with examinations of the ‘outside belongings’ of Montreal balconies, the place of the suburbs, heterotopias, rural/urban, and the ‘closet’. This approach in turn sheds light on Dolan's probing of the boundaries that regulate the ‘normal’, and the way his multiple framing techniques point to altered perceptions amongst millennials of Québec's place in North America and the wider world.

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Culmination

10.5406/illinois/9780252037313.003.0006 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Sharon Mirchandani

Keyword(s):

Performance Art ◽

Choral Music ◽

Electronic Music ◽

Large Scale ◽

Music Performance ◽

Chamber Opera ◽

Orchestral Works ◽

Triple Concerto

This chapter focuses on Marga Richter's compositions during the 1990s. In the 1990s, the compositional world was still fragmented as composers focused on serial and electronic music, performance art, and numerous other styles. Richter continued to created choral music as well as music for opera, which she combined with vocal and orchestral works. Her compositions were fewer in number during this decade, but large in scale for the most part. This chapter first considers Richter's works after the death of her husband Alan Skelly, beginning with the seven-poem cycle, Into My Heart, which she dedicated to him. It then examines Richter's Quantum Quirks of a Quick Quaint Quar, along with two large-scale works from the 1990s that mark the apex of her output to date: the triple concerto, Variations and Interludes on Themes from Monteverdi and Bach for violin, cello, piano, and orchestra (1992); and the chamber opera, Riders to the Sea. It also discusses Sarah do not mourn me dead, which has hints of transcendentalism and love.

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A Facet-Factorial Approach to Rating High School Choral Music Performance

Journal of Research in Music Education ◽

10.2307/3345190 ◽

1977 ◽

Vol 25 (2) ◽

pp. 100-114 ◽

Cited By ~ 31

Author(s):

John M. Cooksey

Keyword(s):

High School ◽

Choral Music ◽

Rating Scale ◽

Music Performance ◽

Performance Rating ◽

Factorial Approach ◽

Reliability Estimates ◽

Global Performance ◽

High Criterion

The purpose of this study was to construct and test a rating scale for the evaluation of high school choral music performance, using a facet-factoria I approach. A scale was developed by collecting descriptions of high school choral performances, transforming them into items, and pairing them with a Likert-type scale. Fifty judges used the scale to rate one hundred high school choral performances. The ratings were factor analyzed and inter-judge reliability estimates were obtained. Two criterion-related studies, using a global performance rating and the NIMAC adjudication scale as criteria, were completed. Seven factors of choral performance were produced by the analysis: diction, precision, dynamics, tone control, tempo, balance/blend, and interpretation/musical effect. Thirty-six criteria (dimensions-items) were selected to form subscales to measure these seven factors. The final scale achieved high inter-judge reliability and high criterion-related validity.

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