Commissioning Melody Eötvös and performing "Light Form" for trumpet in C and piano

Master of MusicDepartment of Music, Theatre, and DanceFrederick BurrackThis master’s report describes the process of commissioning, financing and premiering “Light Form” by Melody Eötvös. Within the scope of the project, my goals were threefold: first, to commission a woman composer as a form of “musical activism” (Locke & Barr, 1997, p. 5), second, to provide a clear understanding of the commissioning and consortium-building processes and third, to produce a detailed analysis of “Light Form” for consortium members readying the piece for performance. Although expanding the repertoire was not my primary aim, trumpeters can testify to a lack of works by women in our standard repertoire. The recent trend in programming works by women composers highlights a notable cultural shift: a wide-scale reappraisal of the classical music canon. I challenge the assumption that the canon was selected objectively and that only the best works stood the test of time. What we consider the classical music canon is a relic of idealism and individualism. These 20th century intellectual movements celebrated the creative output of the “lone genius,” isolating him (most often male) from the historical and social contexts during which he worked and silencing voices, often female, that undermined this narrative. My discussion of feminist texts on the relationship of women to music and the creative act of composition ultimately demands that the work of women receives equal attention free from gendered discourse and the same rigorous critical analysis as that of males. This influenced my decision to premiere “Light Form” on my master’s recital first, followed by a performance on a Women in Music recital celebrating works by women composers. Finally, “Light Form” is inspired by a woman artist (my great-aunt Margaret Singer), and both composer and consortium director are women. However, my pitch was to a consortium of both women and men, colleagues of mine from the past 15 years as a trumpet student. As a result, the piece will receive performances in venues across the country and endure based on its merit as a work of art (Held, 2019, phone interview)

Memorializing Absence: The Ambiguous Place of Holocaust Legacy in the Memorials, Countermemorials, and Museums of Berlin

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College

Alice in Wonderland

Illustration of Alice sitting in chair and mad hatter fussing at rabbithttps://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cht-sheet-music/6620/thumbnail.jp

The Farmer Takes a Wife.

Illustration of couple getting married surrounded by farm animalshttps://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cht-sheet-music/10437/thumbnail.jp

Alice in Wonderland

Illustration of Alice, the Mad Hatter, and rabbit; inset photo of Eddie Cantorhttps://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cht-sheet-music/8669/thumbnail.jp

Project LOBSTAQ : investigations on lobster (Homarus americanus) aquaculture, ecology and tertiary sewage treatment in controlled environmental systems

Research was based on different aspects of incorporating Homarus Americanus cultural into the multi-trophic level marine aquaculture-wastewater treatment system of the Environmental Systems laboratory at Woods Hole. Experiments were directed .toward optimizing food sources available within the system, developing designs to facilitate high density lobster growth, and elucidating the ecology of Homarus. The aquaculture-wastewater treatment system uses secondary sewage effluent or its equivalent as a nutrient source for marine phytoplankton ponds which in turn are fed into raceways containing racks of bivalves. The bivalves produce soluble nutrients used to raise macroalgae, and solid material (biodeposits) used to raise various deposit feeders. Almost all the N and over 50% of the P is removed from the wastewater by the artificial food chain.Prepared under NSF Grant GY-1154

Caste, Kinship, and Life Course: Rethinking Women's Work and Agency in Rural South India

This paper reexamines the linkages between women's work, agency, and well-being based on a household survey and in-depth interviews conducted in rural Tamil Nadu in 2009 and questions the prioritization of workforce participation as a path to gender equality. It emphasizes the need to unpack the nature of work performed by and available to women and its social valuation, as well as women's agency, particularly its implications for decision making around financial and nonfinancial household resources in contexts of socioeconomic change. The effects of work participation on agency are mediated by factors like age and stage in the life cycle, reproductive success, and social location – especially of caste – from which women enter the workforce

Persistent Poverty and Path Dependency: Agrarian Reform: Lessons from the United States and India

Summaries The historical experience of the United States, where aggregate wealth multiplied in abundance but persistent poverty is glaring, offers concrete illustration that growth is not a sufficient condition for poverty alleviation in the transition from agrarian society. In contrast, the State of Kerala in South India abolished an agrarian system based on agrestic serfdom and slavery in a compressed time period and has been notably successful in reducing the incidence of poverty despite income and growth rates well below the Indian mean. Though sometimes romanticised, the ‘Kerala model’ offers both positive and negative lessons from its thorough agrarian reform. Though less prominent in public discourse after the end of the Cold War, agrarian reform still offers significant poverty reduction advantages in comparison with alternatives