Exploring Twentieth Century Vocal Music

¿7FDesigned to aid singers and voice teachers to discover and decipher the inovative repertoire of the 20th century. The book familiarizes the reader with notation systems and suggests rehearsal techniques and vocal exercises."

The vocal repertoire of the twentieth century--including works by Schoenberg, Boulez, Berio, Larsen, and Vercoe--presents exciting opportunities for singers to stretch their talents and demonstrate their vocal flexibility. Contemporary composers can be very demanding of vocalists, requiring them to recite, trill, and whisper, or to read non-traditional scores. For singers just beginning to explore the novelties of the contemporary repertoire, Exploring Twentieth-Century Vocal Music is an ideal guide. Drawing on over thirty years of experience teaching and performing the twentieth century repertoire, Sharon Mabry has written a cogent and insightful book for singers and voice teachers who are just discovering the innovative music of the twentieth century. The book familiarizes readers with the new and unusual notation systems employed by some contemporary composers. It suggests rehearsal techniques and vocal exercises that help singers prepare to tackle the repertoire. And the book offers a list of the most important and interesting works to emerge in the twentieth century, along with suggested recital programs that will introduce audiences as well as singers to this under-explored body of music.

A people-centered book designed to aid singers and voice teachers to discover and decipher the inovative repertoire of the 20th century. The book familiarizes the reader with notation systems and suggests rehearsal techniques and vocal exercises.

Ton de Leeuw was a truly groundbreaking composer. As evidenced by his pioneering study of compositional methods that melded Eastern traditional music with Western musical theory, he had a profound understanding of the complex and often divisive history of twentieth-century music. Now his renowned chronicle Music of the Twentieth Century is offered here in a newly revised English-language edition. Music of the Twentieth Century goes beyond a historical survey with its lucid and impassioned discussion of the elements, structures, compositional principles, and terminologies of twentieth-century music. De Leeuw draws on his experience as a composer, teacher, and music scholar of non-European music traditions, including Indian, Indonesian, and Japanese music, to examine how musical innovations that developed during the twentieth century transformed musical theory, composition, and scholarly thought around the globe.

By integrating theoretical approaches to the female voice with the musicological investigation of female singers’ practices, the contributors to this volume offer fresh viewpoints on the material, symbolic and cultural aspects of the female voice in the twentieth century. Various styles and genres are covered, including Western art music, experimental composition, popular music, urban folk and jazz. The volume offers a substantial and innovative appraisal of the role of the female voice from the perspective of twentieth-century performance practices, the centrality of female singers’ experimentations and extended vocal techniques along with the process of the ‘subjectivisation’ of the voice.

In Songs of the Second Viennese School: A Performer’s Guide to Selected Solo Vocal Works, scholar Loralee Songer outlines for singers and teachers of singers critical information on solo vocal works by three major classical composers, all active during the first half of the twentieth century: Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern.

In The 21st Century Voice: Contemporary and Traditional Extra-Normal Voice, Michael Edward Edgerton considers contemporary vocal techniques within an advanced acoustic and anatomical framework. Throughout, he proposes new directions for vocal exploration. Much more than a treatise on twentieth-century vocal science and study, The 21st Century Voice explores experimental methods of sound production, offering a systematic series of approaches and methods for assessing, engaging, and, in some instances, overcoming the assumed limits of vocal singing.

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