The Act of Singing: Women, Music, and the Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in Indonesia

(English/Indonesian)In this article, I show how the Dialita women’s choir uses music to contest the ongoing denial of state-sponsored violence that followed the Indonesian tragedy of 1965–66, particularly as it impacted women. More specifically, Dialita uses their experiences and positionalities as women to perform an alternative collective memory for younger generations of Indonesians. Composed in prison, Dialita’s musical repertoire memorialises the affects and effects of imprisonment, exile, trauma, and survival. Due to government censure and public condemnation, the songs had been silenced by the Indonesian state and hidden underground from the public since the Indonesian tragedy. In the early 2000s, the women of Dialita formed a musical group and courageously began performing in public, collaborating with young musicians and recording the songs. I contend that women’s collective singing is an act of critical remembrance, opening a new front in struggles for truth and reconciliation, especially when juridical appeals and strategies have been rebuffed.

Perceptions of intercultural religious music and intercultural competence in a Southern U.S. public middle school eighth grade women’s choir: A case study

The purpose of this case study was to examine the researcher’s perceptions of student participants’ intercultural competence during rehearsals, focus groups, and interviews and the perceived benefits and challenges when implementing a researcher-designed curricular unit titled Religious Choral Music from the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Worlds in one eighth grade middle school women’s choir. Using Deardorff’s intercultural competence process framework, which provides a method for exploring and categorizing elements of intercultural competence including attitudes, knowledge/skills, internal outcomes, and external outcomes, the researcher adapted Deardorff’s framework to represent how the student participants demonstrated intercultural competence during the music unit, focus groups, and interviews. The perceived benefits of the music unit included student participants’ emerging intercultural competence — their positive attitudes and knowledge of unfamiliar religions broadened their cultural understanding, and their internal and external behaviors demonstrated respect toward religious and cultural differences. The perceived challenges of the music unit included a lack of resources, assumptions that emerged as a result of teaching about religious music, and intersections that occurred for some between religious music at their school, home, and house of worship. Finally, implications for teaching practice based on these findings are that music teachers should consider engaging students in discussions surrounding the religious and cultural elements of diverse religious music intended to foster intercultural competence.

THE DRAMATURGİCAL ROLE OF CHORAL SCENES İN VASİF ADİGOZALOV’S OPERA “DEAD”

Vasif Adigozalov was one of the artists who attracted attention during the brilliant development of the Azerbaijani composition school in the 70 s of the XX century. Born in Karabakh, a fascinating sorner of Azerbaijan, in the family of the famous and talented singer Zulfu Adigozalov’s works reflected the priceless pages of the national music culture. The story-based opera “The Dead”, which entered the history of literature as a comedy, is also regarded as the first comedy opera in our music history. However, every Azerbaijani who knows the work realizes what a great tragedy is actually happening here. V.Adigozalov began writing this work after graduating from the conservatory. The play was performed at the Azerbaijan State Opera and Ballet Theater named after M.F.Akhundof, in 1963. In V.Adigozalov’s opera, the choir acts as one of the main characters in the dramatic development of the work. Each choral stage server as a driving force within, as well as conditioning the course of events. The choir also represents the image of the public and character that expresses the main idea of the work. In this respect, particular attention should be paid to women’s choir. Because women who are victims of this ignorance. Therefore, the screams, deep tragedies and dramas of the women’s choir are reflected. Another concrete example of the women’s theme is seen in the scenes with Nazli and her mother. In particular, choral scenes, which express Nazli’s belief in the return of his dead sister, eventually lost all hope, and the moaning of traumatized young girls, are the dramatic culmination of the tragedy in opera. When we look at the musical language of the choirs, national intonation and rhythmic features draw attention. The intonations of folk music, characteristic of the composer’s musical language, are clearly felt in all stages of the opera and in the choir. Considering the unique melodies of V.Adigozalov’s vocal music in the vocal and choral performance is important. This direction is also reflevted in other music and stage work, including the composer’s vocal music.

Reflection, Representation, Religion: André Caplet’s Le Miroir de Jésus

André Caplet’s Le Miroir de Jésus (1923), a song cycle scored for mezzo soprano soloist, women’s choir, string quartet, and two harps, has a lush sound world and dramatic vocal declamation, and it was immediately recognized as a masterpiece by the Parisian musical press. The work’s religious topic—mysteries of the rosary—has long been taken as the unambiguous sign that the piece and its composer were unapologetically Catholic, like the author of the poems, the convert Henri Ghéon. In the context of a secular French nation, unambiguous Catholicism can easily signal reactionary politics. Moreover, since it does not project images of anarchy, flappers, or committed nonchalance toward morality, when interpreted vis-à-vis the narrative of French musical aesthetics in the 1920s, the work’s status changed from masterpiece to footnote. Yet, though the work’s early reception by Catholic writers cemented its classification as a sacred work, Caplet’s own goals were less clear. Through a comparative musical analysis of characteristics that Le Miroir shares with Caplet’s secular works whose themes come from classicism or mystery, I demonstrate his agnostic aesthetic. Through an investigation of archival sources relating to Caplet’s smaller contemporaneous projects, including a 1923 setting of a poem by Baudelaire, his contribution to La Revue musicale’s 1924 Le Tombeau de Ronsard, and his response to a 1924 survey about “new music,” Caplet’s interest in classicism emerges as a salient context for understanding his largest postwar composition. Additionally Caplet’s real-time documentation of his creative process and goals in detailed correspondence with his wife, Geneviève, contributes further evidence of Caplet’s pragmatism. Rather than moralistic and reactionary, Le Miroir can be understood in the context of postwar artists attempting to render spirituality less institutional and more personal.

A Grounded Theory of Adolescent High School Women’s Choir Singers’ Process of Social Identity Development

The purpose of this grounded theory study was to discover the process of social identity development for adolescent high school women’s choir participants. Purposive maximum variation sampling was used to identify three public high school women’s choirs where 54 interviews were conducted with 40 different public school singers. Three waves of data collection and analysis revealed a seven-step process beginning with coming in singing and ending with envisioning myself. The central phenomenon was identified as opening up my voice and me and emphasized singers’ increased self-confidence. Intervening conditions included competition, the absence of choral opportunities, and lack of understanding from those outside of the choral program. Amount of time in the choral program, number of groups, and community recognition were identified as contextual conditions. Dimensionalized properties, a temporal matrix, and propositional statements are presented.

Swiss Music

NORBERT MORET: TriptyquepourlesFêtes1; Gastlosen2; Mendiant du Ciel bleu3. 1The Tallis Scholars; 2Fritz Muggler organ); 3Béatrice Haldas (sop), Philippe Huttenlocher (bar), Nederlandse Omroep Stichting of Hilversum, Maitrise de St-Pierre aux Liens of Bulle, Düdingen Women's Choir; Heiner Kühner, Catherine Moret, Claudia Schneuwly (organs), Basle Radio Symphony Orchestra c. Armin Jordan. Musiques Suisses MGB CD 6199.ROLF LIEBERMANN: Furioso for orchestra1; Geigy Festival Concerto2; Medea-Monolog3; Les Echanges4; Concerto for Jazz Band and Symphony Orchestra5. 3Rachael Tovey (sop), 3Darmstadt Concert Choir; 2Alfons Grieder (perc); 1,2,5Simon Nabatov (pno); 5NDR Big Band, 1–5Bremen Philharmonic Orchestra c. Günter Neuhold. Naxos 8.555884.BETTINA SKRZYPCZAK: Scène1; Miroirs2; Fantasie for oboe3; SN 1993 J4; Toccata sospesa5; Concerto for Piano and Orchestra6. 1Noemi Schindler (vln), Christophe Roy (vlc); 2Mireille Capelle mezzo-sop), Ensemble Contrechamps of Geneva; 3Matthias Arter (oboe); 4Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonia of Zlin c. Monica Buckland Hofstetter; 5Verena Bosshart (fl), Riccardo Bologna, Eduardo Leandro (perc); 6Massimiliano Damerini (pno), Philharmonische Werkstatt Schweiz c. Mario Venzago. Musikszene Schweiz Grammont Portrait MGB CTS-M 78.RICHARD DUBUGNON: Piano Quartet1; Incantatio for cello and piano2; Trois Evocations finlandaises3; Cinq Masques for oboe4; Canonic Verses for Oboe, Cor Anglais and Oboe d'Amore5; Frenglish Suite for Wind Quintet6. 4,5Nicholas Daniel (ob), 5Emma Fielding (cor ang), 5Sai Kai (ob d'amore), 1Viv McLean (pno), 2Dominic Harlan (pno), 1Illka Lehtonen (vln), 1Julia Knight (vla), 1,2Matthew Sharp (vlc), 3Richard Dubugnon (db), 6Royal Academy Wind Soloists. Naxos 8.555778.