Cultural expression in Latvian choral music and selected works for women’s choir by Pēteris Vasks

Grizzard, Mark

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/120198 Copy

Description

Title

Cultural expression in Latvian choral music and selected works for women’s choir by Pēteris Vasks

Author(s)

Grizzard, Mark

Issue Date

2023-02-06

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Buchanan, Donna A

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Megill, Andrew

Committee Member(s)

• Solya, Andrea
• Tharp, Reynold

Department of Study

Music

Discipline

Choral Music

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

A.Mus.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Latvia
• choir
• Latvian choral music
• Pēteris Vasks
• Baltic states
• post-Soviet cultural expression
• treble choir
• women's choir

Abstract

Throughout Latvia’s history, collective singing has been a vibrant and culturally central practice. In the middle of the twentieth century, amateur women’s choirs from Latvia gained international recognition as representatives of the Soviet Union, and Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks (b. 1946) created several compelling works for women’s choir during this period. In the 1980s, Latvia joined with its neighbors Estonia and Lithuania to peacefully declare their desire for political freedom from the Soviet Union in what became known as the Singing Revolution. Much research recounts the ways that choral singing helped lead to political change for Latvia in 1991, yet relatively little research exists on choral singing in Latvia after 1991. In this dissertation I examine the cultural messages expressed through Vasks’s compositions for women’s choir both during and since the Soviet era. Through analysis of musical scores, exploration of scholarship, and interviews with Latvian musicians, I discuss Vasks’s craft and evolution of style, and I consider the effect that democratization had on national identity formation in Latvia. I investigate contemporary Latvian choral culture and the messages that singers communicate through collective singing today. I argue that choral music in Latvia has served, and continues to serve, as a prominent vehicle for personal and cultural expression, and that the compositions for women’s choir by Pēteris Vasks exemplify the ways this artform has been used to assert identity while disseminating powerful messages of sonic beauty around the world. The Singing Revolution is now thirty years in the past, and a contemporary examination of choral music’s role in Baltic culture and civic life is warranted; illuminating the ways that Latvians uphold their singing heritage as a genuine, relevant form of modern-day expression can help all musicians better understand and utilize the world-changing power of choral music.

Graduation Semester

2023-05

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2023 Mark Grizzard

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