Historical Context and the Elucidation of a New Musical Whole in Heroes’ Salute: A Musical Tribute to Veterans
Format
Oral Presentation
Faculty Mentor Name
Robert Coburn
Faculty Mentor Department
Music Studies
Abstract/Artist Statement
Heroes’ Salute: A Musical Tribute to Veterans was created as an undergraduate artistic/research project during the summer of 2010. The project was to create a new artistic work that combines originally composed music, theater, and digital visual staging. The theme of the work focuses on the heroism of American service men and women through the ages. The music was created with an ear to history, but Heroes’ Salute is a new musical work, not a carbon copy of America’s musical past. Research into the music theory of each time period was just as important to the story telling as investigation of oral history and primary sources. This presentation is about compositional process, and how a new musical whole was created from musical fragments of history. Historical investigation and invocation in fresh execution found fertile ground in a variety of sources:The tradition of military marching cadences,The Civil War’s bugle calls, spirituals, and hymnody,Traditional Iraqi Maqams,Swing-era jazz.I will demonstrate how the theoretical analysis and musical understanding of each time period was foundational to the new pieces created. I will also discuss the artistic impetus for the contemporary voice with which the music was created as a whole, resulting in bending, blending, changing, transforming, or convolving the historical frameworks.
Location
DeRosa University Center, Room 211A/B
Start Date
21-4-2011 5:00 PM
End Date
21-4-2011 8:00 PM
Historical Context and the Elucidation of a New Musical Whole in Heroes’ Salute: A Musical Tribute to Veterans
DeRosa University Center, Room 211A/B
Heroes’ Salute: A Musical Tribute to Veterans was created as an undergraduate artistic/research project during the summer of 2010. The project was to create a new artistic work that combines originally composed music, theater, and digital visual staging. The theme of the work focuses on the heroism of American service men and women through the ages. The music was created with an ear to history, but Heroes’ Salute is a new musical work, not a carbon copy of America’s musical past. Research into the music theory of each time period was just as important to the story telling as investigation of oral history and primary sources. This presentation is about compositional process, and how a new musical whole was created from musical fragments of history. Historical investigation and invocation in fresh execution found fertile ground in a variety of sources:The tradition of military marching cadences,The Civil War’s bugle calls, spirituals, and hymnody,Traditional Iraqi Maqams,Swing-era jazz.I will demonstrate how the theoretical analysis and musical understanding of each time period was foundational to the new pieces created. I will also discuss the artistic impetus for the contemporary voice with which the music was created as a whole, resulting in bending, blending, changing, transforming, or convolving the historical frameworks.