Le musiche di scena di Louis Pister per La Tosca di Sardou: edizione critica della partitura

La tesi di dottorato di Erin M. Brooks, oggi Assistant Professor di Storia della musica presso la Crane School of Music della State University of New York at Potsdam, indaga il rapporto tra Sarah Bernhardt, prima interprete del ruolo di Floria in La Tosca, e la musica del suo tempo, compresa quella scritta appositamente per il teatro. All’interno di questo testo viene citata una rilevante scoperta dell’autrice, ossia un manoscritto delle musiche di scena composte da un certo Louis Pister per la pièce di Sardou, conservate oggi presso la National Library of Australia. Scopo di questo contributo è quello di proporre un’edizione critica delle musiche di scena composte da Pister, documento imprescindibile per l’analisi dell’opera di Sardou. Inoltre, si tenterà di ricostruire, attraverso lo spoglio dei periodici contemporanei, la ricezione del dramma La Tosca e il profilo biografico dello sconosciuto compositore della musica incidentale.

Struggling to decolonise ourselves as an antiracist act within the field of the Nordic Community School of Music and Arts

This article will investigate a general concern with the practical implementation of inclusion as recommended in policy documents in art education in general and the Nordic Community School of Music and Arts (NCSMA) specifically. We ask: What do policy documents mean by inclusion? In what way can or do art educators practice inclusionary strategies? We consider homogeneity in this field and the need for pluralism in this institutional framework. We will diffract discourses through words and images in threads from a post-colonial perspective, critical race and Whiteness studies. Struggling through our blind spots in knowledge production, we seek to understand how Other perspectives received in the NCSMA can emerge. The three research scholars from the field of education and art embody different educational and geographical starting points and differing but shifting power positions in various contexts. This triangle of embodied knowledge allows us to investigate these conflicting positions and perform intentional antiracist response-ability in research related to the NCSMA as an educational institution. Our analysis shows a discrepancy between general intentions of inclusion and practical outcomes.

Māori Performing Arts and the Weaving Together of Local, National and International Communities

<p>Māori performing arts provides a valuable contribution to Aotearoa New Zealand society. Māori performing arts has an intrinsic link to Māori culture and is used to connect 1) Māori who are disengaged from iwi/hapu/whanau, as well as 2) non-Māori, in New Zealand and around the world with Māori culture. Performance genres such as waiata-a-ringa, haka and mōteatea contain a body of knowledge that communicate Māori ways of being and doing and provide participants with an opportunity to become connected to a culturally literate and informed community. Using ethnographic techniques of participant observation, interviews and performance, this thesis examines the experiences of individuals who engage with Māori performing arts and the meaning they attribute to their engagement with the art form. Drawing on contemporary ideas of community and meaning, this thesis also investigates how Māori performing arts builds and strengthens relationships and whanaungatanga by connecting participants to local, national and international Aotearoa New Zealand communities. This thesis draws on two contexts in Wellington where people engage with Māori performing arts - The Ngāti Pōneke Young Māori Club at Pipitea marae and Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music. Along with exploring two Māori performance context in detail, this these explores how Māori performing arts is used as a platform to educate participants about Māori knowledge, language and culture while also discussing how Māori performing arts is used to symbolise and represent Aotearoa New Zealand nationally and internationally.</p>

Outside In: Wellington jazz among the discourses

<p>The jazz community in Wellington, New Zealand, is vibrant and energetic: this small, geographically isolated city hosts between 90 and 100 jazz performances each month. Yet in terms of both New Zealand music and the international profile of jazz, Wellington (and New Zealand) jazz occupies a curious blind spot, absent from the scholarly and mainstream discourses of both. This absence is reflected in Wellingtonians’ own practice, in which perspectives from overseas (usually the U.S.) are privileged. Combining ethnography, practice-led research, and a variety of theoretical lenses, I examine the Wellington scene and its dynamics. Initially describing the local scene in geographical, economic, and social terms, I examine notions of “scene” and “community”, illustrating the ways in which they privilege dominant perspectives at the expense of a broader, collective identity. Through detailed case studies of central government music funding and the New Zealand School of Music jazz programme, I illustrate the dual hegemonies with which Wellington jazz musicians must contend: underlying discursive assumptions about the nature of both New Zealand music and the jazz tradition combine to leave local jazz in a liminal space, in which it arguably fits both categories, but is present within the discourse of neither. In the second part of the thesis, engaging with the discourses on authenticity in jazz, the tradition, and identity, I consider the nature of jazz expression. On one hand, ‘true’ jazz expression requires the performer to perform their identity; on the other, it is bound by a set of practices and/or aesthetics, deriving from a Black (or Blues) aesthetic. The combination of imperatives is problematic for musicians of other cultures, as E. Taylor Atkins (2001) has pointed out, and it is for this reason that jazz discourse remains largely rooted in the U.S. By turning the concept of authenticity in jazz back on itself, I propose that the creativity mandated by jazz aesthetics allows for new, culturally specific forms of jazz that draw on the individual identity of the performer, and which therefore sit firmly within the jazz tradition, at least in relation to particular definitions. Presenting a number of case studies, I illustrate the concepts of authenticity and identity in relation to performance in the Wellington scene: local musicians imbue the jazz they perform with new, locally specific meanings that derive from their own identity and context, despite overtly drawing on overseas influences. As a result, the jazz performed in local scenes like Wellington may fruitfully add to the discourses of both New Zealand music and jazz, by presenting additional perspectives that challenge preconceptions of both.</p>

Outside In: Wellington jazz among the discourses

<p>The jazz community in Wellington, New Zealand, is vibrant and energetic: this small, geographically isolated city hosts between 90 and 100 jazz performances each month. Yet in terms of both New Zealand music and the international profile of jazz, Wellington (and New Zealand) jazz occupies a curious blind spot, absent from the scholarly and mainstream discourses of both. This absence is reflected in Wellingtonians’ own practice, in which perspectives from overseas (usually the U.S.) are privileged. Combining ethnography, practice-led research, and a variety of theoretical lenses, I examine the Wellington scene and its dynamics. Initially describing the local scene in geographical, economic, and social terms, I examine notions of “scene” and “community”, illustrating the ways in which they privilege dominant perspectives at the expense of a broader, collective identity. Through detailed case studies of central government music funding and the New Zealand School of Music jazz programme, I illustrate the dual hegemonies with which Wellington jazz musicians must contend: underlying discursive assumptions about the nature of both New Zealand music and the jazz tradition combine to leave local jazz in a liminal space, in which it arguably fits both categories, but is present within the discourse of neither. In the second part of the thesis, engaging with the discourses on authenticity in jazz, the tradition, and identity, I consider the nature of jazz expression. On one hand, ‘true’ jazz expression requires the performer to perform their identity; on the other, it is bound by a set of practices and/or aesthetics, deriving from a Black (or Blues) aesthetic. The combination of imperatives is problematic for musicians of other cultures, as E. Taylor Atkins (2001) has pointed out, and it is for this reason that jazz discourse remains largely rooted in the U.S. By turning the concept of authenticity in jazz back on itself, I propose that the creativity mandated by jazz aesthetics allows for new, culturally specific forms of jazz that draw on the individual identity of the performer, and which therefore sit firmly within the jazz tradition, at least in relation to particular definitions. Presenting a number of case studies, I illustrate the concepts of authenticity and identity in relation to performance in the Wellington scene: local musicians imbue the jazz they perform with new, locally specific meanings that derive from their own identity and context, despite overtly drawing on overseas influences. As a result, the jazz performed in local scenes like Wellington may fruitfully add to the discourses of both New Zealand music and jazz, by presenting additional perspectives that challenge preconceptions of both.</p>

Māori Performing Arts and the Weaving Together of Local, National and International Communities

<p>Māori performing arts provides a valuable contribution to Aotearoa New Zealand society. Māori performing arts has an intrinsic link to Māori culture and is used to connect 1) Māori who are disengaged from iwi/hapu/whanau, as well as 2) non-Māori, in New Zealand and around the world with Māori culture. Performance genres such as waiata-a-ringa, haka and mōteatea contain a body of knowledge that communicate Māori ways of being and doing and provide participants with an opportunity to become connected to a culturally literate and informed community. Using ethnographic techniques of participant observation, interviews and performance, this thesis examines the experiences of individuals who engage with Māori performing arts and the meaning they attribute to their engagement with the art form. Drawing on contemporary ideas of community and meaning, this thesis also investigates how Māori performing arts builds and strengthens relationships and whanaungatanga by connecting participants to local, national and international Aotearoa New Zealand communities. This thesis draws on two contexts in Wellington where people engage with Māori performing arts - The Ngāti Pōneke Young Māori Club at Pipitea marae and Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music. Along with exploring two Māori performance context in detail, this these explores how Māori performing arts is used as a platform to educate participants about Māori knowledge, language and culture while also discussing how Māori performing arts is used to symbolise and represent Aotearoa New Zealand nationally and internationally.</p>

Assimilation of the Lost Site: Establishing Architectural Identity on Sites Defined by Conflicting Grids and Conflicting Programmatic Typologies

<p>The contemporary urban dilemma of the ‘lost site’ has arisen due to the ever-increasing density of our urban environments, where boundaries of contrasting urban contextual grid conditions overlap, forming pocket sites that ultimately must respond to multiple grids yet belong to none. These lost sites are the sites trapped by opposing contextual constraints, needing to respond to multiple and often conflicting conditions and as such ameliorating the architect’s ability to provide them with a single unique sense of holistic identity. This research investigates approaches for the design of these lost sites, particularly when they must not only respond to multiple grid conditions, but are also required to engage multiple diverse programs and reflect conflicting programmatic typologies. The vehicle for this design research investigation will be the actual site and program for the proposed new New Zealand School of Music on Jack Ilott Green in the northeast corner of Wellington’s Civic Square. As an example of a ‘lost site’, this site must establish a public identity that responds to its principal frontage Jervois Quay and the Harbour, while simultaneously resolving and responding to a civic identity required by Civic Square and a more local identity required by Harris Street. The program must establish an academic identity as a music school, while simultaneously establishing civic identity as a public concert hall on Civic Square in conjunction with Capital E, Michael Fowler Centre, Town Hall, City Council, Public Library, and City Gallery. The thesis argues that architecture on ‘lost sites’ can be conceived as a metaphorical ‘joint’ as a means of responding to opposing site and program conditions. The thesis argues that architecture's potential to be manifested as a joint can be strategically used as a viable means of addressing lost sites. This approach further suggests that a building on a lost site can be conceived as having multiple ‘front’ façades – each expressing identity in response to a different set of contextual and programmatic conditions. The thesis tests how this approach might enable architecture to establish a holistic identity upon an urban ‘lost site’, even with each of its façades needing to engage a different identity.Recent demographic shifts which involve more families living in New Zealand’s urban centres have led to an ever-increasing density of our urban environments. The denser the urban environment becomes, the greater the number of ‘lost sites’ begin to emerge. Most buildings address this dilemma by either considering only one dominant set of conditions, or by being conceived as an ‘object in a field’ which actively denies the contextual conditions. These complex sites are an urban and architectural issue in need of active critical resolution. This thesis explores how such diverse opposing requirements can be resolved holistically while establishing unique identities for each set of unique site conditions.</p>

Assimilation of the Lost Site: Establishing Architectural Identity on Sites Defined by Conflicting Grids and Conflicting Programmatic Typologies

<p>The contemporary urban dilemma of the ‘lost site’ has arisen due to the ever-increasing density of our urban environments, where boundaries of contrasting urban contextual grid conditions overlap, forming pocket sites that ultimately must respond to multiple grids yet belong to none. These lost sites are the sites trapped by opposing contextual constraints, needing to respond to multiple and often conflicting conditions and as such ameliorating the architect’s ability to provide them with a single unique sense of holistic identity. This research investigates approaches for the design of these lost sites, particularly when they must not only respond to multiple grid conditions, but are also required to engage multiple diverse programs and reflect conflicting programmatic typologies. The vehicle for this design research investigation will be the actual site and program for the proposed new New Zealand School of Music on Jack Ilott Green in the northeast corner of Wellington’s Civic Square. As an example of a ‘lost site’, this site must establish a public identity that responds to its principal frontage Jervois Quay and the Harbour, while simultaneously resolving and responding to a civic identity required by Civic Square and a more local identity required by Harris Street. The program must establish an academic identity as a music school, while simultaneously establishing civic identity as a public concert hall on Civic Square in conjunction with Capital E, Michael Fowler Centre, Town Hall, City Council, Public Library, and City Gallery. The thesis argues that architecture on ‘lost sites’ can be conceived as a metaphorical ‘joint’ as a means of responding to opposing site and program conditions. The thesis argues that architecture's potential to be manifested as a joint can be strategically used as a viable means of addressing lost sites. This approach further suggests that a building on a lost site can be conceived as having multiple ‘front’ façades – each expressing identity in response to a different set of contextual and programmatic conditions. The thesis tests how this approach might enable architecture to establish a holistic identity upon an urban ‘lost site’, even with each of its façades needing to engage a different identity.Recent demographic shifts which involve more families living in New Zealand’s urban centres have led to an ever-increasing density of our urban environments. The denser the urban environment becomes, the greater the number of ‘lost sites’ begin to emerge. Most buildings address this dilemma by either considering only one dominant set of conditions, or by being conceived as an ‘object in a field’ which actively denies the contextual conditions. These complex sites are an urban and architectural issue in need of active critical resolution. This thesis explores how such diverse opposing requirements can be resolved holistically while establishing unique identities for each set of unique site conditions.</p>

The Influences of Performers and Composers on Selected Violin Works of Johannes Brahms

<p>Joseph Joachim was the most influential violinist in Brahms’s life. Not only did the pair have a close personal friendship, but they also admired and respected each other on a professional level. Their high esteem and appreciation for each other led to performance and compositional collaborations. One of the most beloved and well-known works of Brahms’s violin music, the Violin Concerto, was dedicated to Joachim. Indubitably, Joachim influenced the Violin Concerto. Regardless, there are many debates on how much of an input Joachim had on the concerto. In order to examine the influences of performers and composers on selected violin works of Johannes Brahms, the three sections in this paper will investigate Joachim and Brahms, then discuss the importance of a performer-composer’s relationship in the 19th century and, finally, assess the amount of Joachim’s influence on the Brahms Violin Concerto. Each category will have an introduction and information presented in a biographical form, a historical form and musical analysis. Some of the following analysis may be hypothetical, yet, a possibility. Further part of my research will conclude with a recital programme consisting of the Beethoven Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, I. Allegro Ma Non Troppo, Brahms Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108, Sonatensatz/Scherzo movement of the F-A-E Sonata, and Hungarian Dances No. 1, 5 and 7. This will take place on June 18, 2011 in the Adam Concert Room at New Zealand School of Music at 10:30 A.M.</p>

The Influences of Performers and Composers on Selected Violin Works of Johannes Brahms

<p>Joseph Joachim was the most influential violinist in Brahms’s life. Not only did the pair have a close personal friendship, but they also admired and respected each other on a professional level. Their high esteem and appreciation for each other led to performance and compositional collaborations. One of the most beloved and well-known works of Brahms’s violin music, the Violin Concerto, was dedicated to Joachim. Indubitably, Joachim influenced the Violin Concerto. Regardless, there are many debates on how much of an input Joachim had on the concerto. In order to examine the influences of performers and composers on selected violin works of Johannes Brahms, the three sections in this paper will investigate Joachim and Brahms, then discuss the importance of a performer-composer’s relationship in the 19th century and, finally, assess the amount of Joachim’s influence on the Brahms Violin Concerto. Each category will have an introduction and information presented in a biographical form, a historical form and musical analysis. Some of the following analysis may be hypothetical, yet, a possibility. Further part of my research will conclude with a recital programme consisting of the Beethoven Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, I. Allegro Ma Non Troppo, Brahms Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108, Sonatensatz/Scherzo movement of the F-A-E Sonata, and Hungarian Dances No. 1, 5 and 7. This will take place on June 18, 2011 in the Adam Concert Room at New Zealand School of Music at 10:30 A.M.</p>