Musical Narrative in Missy Mazzoli's Solo Piano Works

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Musical Narrative in Missy Mazzoli's Solo PChristinaiano Yiing-Hueih Work Lais

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COLLEGE OF MUSIC

MUSICAL NARRATIVE IN MISSY MAZZOLI’S SOLO PIANO WORKS

CHRISTINA LAI

A Treatise submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Music

2020

Christina Lai defended this treatise on March 30, 2020. The members of the supervisory committee were:

Read Gainsford Professor Directing Treatise

Joseph Kraus University Representative

Diana Dumlavwalla Committee Member

Heidi Louise Williams Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the treatise has been approved in accordance with university requirements.

ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my professor Dr. Read Gainsford for changing my perspective on music and on life. I owe so much of my personal growth to you. A large thank you to Dr. Diana

Dumlavwalla, Dr. Heidi Louise Williams, and Dr. Joseph Kraus for supporting my studies and teaching me new ways to view teaching and research. A special thanks to Dr. Amy Bradley for spending hours on my treatise and guiding my way through tough waters. Lastly, I’d like to thank both of my parents for supporting me on this musical journey.

iii TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Musical Examples ...... v List of Tables ...... vii Abstract ...... viii

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

1. NARRATIVE IN MINIMALIST MUSIC ...... 8 Elements of Musical Narrative Analysis ...... 10 Defining Minimalism ...... 15

2. MISSY MAZZOLI THE STORY-TELLER ...... 22

3. NARRATIVE IN MAZZOLI’S SOLO PIANO WORKS...... 29 Orizzonte ...... 29 Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Pianos ...... 35 Heartbreaker ...... 43

CONCLUSION ...... 51 APPENDICES ...... 52 A. Almén and Hatten’s Outline of Twentieth-Century Techniques and Aesthetics with Implications for Narrative Interpretation ...... 52 B. Narrative Archetypes: Transvaluation Profiles ...... 53 C. Copyright Credits ...... 54

Bibliography ...... 55 Biographical Sketch ...... 57

iv LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES

Example 1. Opening of Orizzonte ...... 31

Example 2. Orizzonte, motive revolving around B ...... 31

Example 3. Orizzonte, motive revolving around C-sharp ...... 31

Example 4. Orizzonte, motive centered on B diminished triad ...... 32

Example 5. Orizzonte, concluding motive ...... 32

Example 6. Orizzonte, S that interrupts Example 4’s S ...... 33

Example 7. Orizzonte, falling motive ...... 34

Example 8. Orizzonte, last reiteration of last motive ...... 34

Example 9. Opening piano motive, Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Pianos, mm. 1-31 ...... 37

Example 10. Isabelle Eberhardt, mm. 32-47, showing falling motive in mm. 38-39 ...... 37

Example 11. Isabelle Eberhardt, mm. 277-82, showing borrowed fragment in m. 278 of Schubert’s Sonata in A Major D. 959, second movement ...... 38

Example 12. Isabelle Eberhardt, mm. 64-68, irregular rhythm/syncopation...... 38

Example 13. Isabelle Eberhardt, mm. 155-60 irregular rhythms between soprano and alto parts ...... 38

Example 14. Isabelle Eberhardt, mm. 173-78, regular rhythms in soundtrack and tenor voice ...39

Example 15. Isabelle Eberhardt, mm. 245-249, synchronized rhythms in all piano parts at m. 248...... 40

Example 16. Isabelle Eberhardt, mm, 332-404, conclusion implementing trance time ...... 40

Example 17. Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Pianos, mm. 64-88, slow-motion time ...... 40

Example 18. Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Pianos, mm. 260-270, transition into

v F-sharp minor with A major interruptions ...... 41

Example 19. Opening of Heartbreaker, mm. 1-5 ...... 45

Example 20. Heartbreaker, rising sixteenths in mm. 9, 14-15 ...... 45

Example 21. Ending of Heartbreaker, mm. 165-71 ...... 45

Example 22. Heartbreaker, mm. 84-87, contrasting melodic sixteenths ...... 46

Example 23. Heartbreaker, mm.117-122, melodic sixteenths breaking out of static sixteenths ..46

Example 24. Heartbreaker, mm. 45-53, slow-motion time ...... 47

Example 25. Heartbreaker, mm. 79-78, spatial stratification ...... 48

vi LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Excerpt of Almén and Hatten’s Outline of Twentieth-Century Techniques and Aesthetics with Implications for Narrative Interpretation ...... 19

Table 2. Order and Transgressions in Orizzonte ...... 30

Table 3. Order and Transgressions in Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Pianos ...... 36

Table 4. Order and Transgressions in Heartbreaker ...... 44

Table 5. Techniques used in Heartbreaker ...... 47

vii ABSTRACT

This treatise proposes a narrative approach for analyzing Missy Mazzoli’s solo piano works based on the theory of Byron Almén. The first part of Chapter 1 is devoted to explaining narrative approaches, based on gestures, semiotics, markedness, and plot archetypes. In the second part, minimalism and the different definitions in minimalist music will be discussed. The second chapter introduces performer-composer Missy Mazzoli and her musical influences, including specific composers whose styles have impacted her own, as well as the inspiration she draws from the human experience. The third chapter includes analyses of three of her solo piano works—Orizzonte, Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Pianos, and Heartbreaker—using Almén’s theory of musical narrative, and provides performance suggestions. Utilizing a narrative approach for the interpretation of post-minimalist music can provide access to similar pieces of this style for both performers and listeners.

viii

INTRODUCTION

Hailed as “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart,” Missy Mazzoli identifies as a performer- composer, a label that she has borrowed from the indie rock world.1 In an ever-changing culture of composition, Mazzoli is a composer who performs her own music in her own band, helps run a new music festival, and teaches young composers. Human connection sparks her interest in learning and teaching, and this is palpable in her musical compositions. Mazzoli hopes to be remembered for helping young composers and dispelling the anxiety and fear that has been associated with a career in the arts.2

Mazzoli’s music tells stories and draws inspiration from the human experience. Her story-telling began with instrumental works, but once she realized the collaborative nature of opera, she found a new medium for her stories. Her musical works contain narratives involving people’s lives, emotions, and responses, told through Mazzoli’s unique voice that has been built from influences by other composers and experiences from her own life. This treatise provides a narrative approach to three of Mazzoli’s solo piano works in hopes of assisting and encouraging performances of her pieces.

Analyses of Missy Mazzoli’s pieces do not exist in the literature because her music is relatively new. Although the notion of narrative in music is controversial because of the lack of text specificity in instrumental sounds, finding a narrative in music that is implied by specific musical gestures can make a connection between theory and meaning. The discussion of musical narrative in Mazzoli’s pieces will invite both performers and listeners to become more receptive

1 NPR Staff, “Missy Mazzoli: A New Opera and New Attitude for Classical Music,” NPR.org, November 20, 2012, accessed January 15, 2020, https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2012/11/23/165585232/missy-mazzoli- a-new-opera-and-new-attitude-for-classical-music. 2 Evan Sawdey, “20 Questions: Missy Mazzoli,” PopMatters, January 29, 2013, accessed January 15, 2020, https://www.popmatters.com/167394-20-questions-missy-mazzoli-2495784912.html. 1

to this post-minimalist style of music. This can lead to discussions about other contemporary pieces and how one might understand musical discourse in unfamiliar pieces. The field of minimalist music is misunderstood as being merely monotonous repetition, and this study can help performers find a different inspiration for interpretation.

Using Byron Almén’s theory of musical narrative I suggest a narrative interpretation of the following piano pieces written by Mazzoli: Orizzonte (2004), Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of

Pianos (2007), and Heartbreaker (2013). Gestures and post-1900 techniques in these works will be analyzed for markedness, which will contribute to determining transvaluation in order to determine plot archetypes for each piece. According to the plot archetypes, performance suggestions will be made.

Survey of Literature

The writing on musical narrative is relatively recent, but there is a wide range of opinions on the validity of applying narrative to musical analysis. The following opinions are only glimpses of the large debate, but I will be following the methods for narrative analysis that seem most constructive.

Jean-Jacques Nattiez’s “Can One Speak of Narrativity in Music?” provides a comprehensive introduction to musical narrativity.3 Nattiez defines narrative in both the literary sense and the musical sense, and then reports on different existing methods to analyze narrativity in music. He tries to find parallels between musical narrative and literary narrative by examining events placed in the context of time and discourse. The discourse, in other words the interactions in music due to form, is placed in time through repetitions, returns, preparations, expectations,

3 Jean-Jacques Nattiez and Katharine Ellis, “Can One Speak of Narrativity in Music?,” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 115, no. 2 (1990): 240–57. 2

resolutions, and continuity. Despite the number of theories analyzing musical narrative, Nattiez concludes that music itself is not a narrative and that it is just an imitation of narration.4

Although Nattiez believes that most narrative analyses are metaphorical, he still states that composers are immersed in their own culture and therefore, the composer leaves interpreters to understand the historical and cultural background. This brings back the implication to find meaning in music.

Nattiez agrees with Carolyn Abbate’s belief that narrative not only includes a story, but also needs a narrative voice. 5 In addition to the structure of the plot, narrative also needs context, identity, and voice. In Abbate’s Unsung Voices, Abbate covers musical gestures and the analysis of voice and narrative in music. Abbate borrows the symbols of musical narrating that exist in opera and believes these can also be found in the late nineteenth century’s instrumental music.6

Through her studies of Delibes, Mozart, Strauss, Dukas, Mahler, and Wagner, she explores what it means to narrate and explains how any symbolism found is not universal. Despite Abbate’s opinion that musical narrative as a musical plot is limiting, she creates a guide to understanding what is and is not narrative in music.

Although interpretation of musical narrative is subjective, there are matters of style and intertextuality that inflect meaning. This argument supports understanding musical meaning and narrative through semiotics and gestural meaning. The available literature on musical narrative provides a strong foundation for narrative analyses in other works, whether tonal or post-tonal.

4 Nattiez and Ellis, 257. 5 Carolyn Abbate, Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991). 6 Ibid. 3

Musical gestures are further discussed in works by Byron Almén, Robert Hatten, and Jenefer

Robinson.7

Almén’s Approaches to Meaning in Music is a collection of multiple perspectives on musical meaning including discussions on gesture, narrativity, temporality, and symbolism.8

Throughout the essays, there seems to be an agreement that music is informed by culture, politics, and art. The gestures described in this work are defined in terms of temporality, familiarity, gestures’ association, and tradition. Influenced by these characteristics, Almén finds that musical meaning is often found through a dialogic process and contrasting ideas.9

In Hatten’s Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes, a semiotic approach is used to explore musical meaning. Hatten keeps his interpretations of meaning within the context of the work’s style. He understands that interpretations can differ, but we can move beyond the subjective towards stylistic and interpretive evidence in order to support our own claims.10 In addition to the complex topic of musical gesture, Hatten also finds musical meaning through the synthesis of gestures and oppositions of musical gestures, all with a “degree of systematic coherence within a style.”11 Jenefer Robinson’s Music and Meaning is another collection of several essays separated into three sections and touching upon the meaning in music from theoretical, historical, and philosophical views. The first section displays three different views on how the formal and syntactic qualities in the music incite meaning. The second section touches upon plot and narrative, and connects formal analysis with expression. The final section discusses how people respond emotionally to the music.

7 Jenefer Robinson, Music & Meaning (New York: Cornell University Press, 1997). 8 Byron Almén and Edward Pearsall, Approaches to Meaning in Music (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006). 9 Almén and Pearsall, 3. 10 Robert S. Hatten, Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 288. 11 Hatten, 287. 4

In A Theory of Musical Narrative, Byron Almén borrows Northrop Frye’s four mythoi, or plot archetypes, and Ero Tarasti and James Jakób Liszka’s semiotic approaches to create his own method for analyzing musical narrative.12 His analyses support the flexibility of using diverse methods in order to find the most applicable approach for narrative interpretation in attempts to also balance social and psychological methodology.13 He believes that parts of his method, specifically transvaluation, avoid the complexity of musical narrative by comparison with literary narrative owing to transvaluation’s ability to show conflict and discourse between an established hierarchy and the challenges that counter the hierarchy. Almén applies his theory to musical works ranging from the early eighteenth century to the 1960s.

Michael Klein’s Music and Narrative since 1900 is a collection of essays by different writers that defend the existence and use of musical narrative.14 Because musical narrative is often analyzed in pieces with functional and common-practice tonality, post-tonal music seems to be less open to narrative interpretation. In response, the contributors specifically show different windows into the theories of musical narrative pertaining to music after 1900. In the second part of the collection, Almén and Hatten build on Almén’s theory of musical narrative and present post-1900 musical styles that contain or lack narrative. They believe that it inevitable for humans to attempt to engage in a narrative level with post-1900 works in order to understand the music, and comparisons are useful in establishing the variables that support narrative interpretations.15 These essays provide in-depth analyses of works from the twentieth century using a variety and sometimes syntheses of theories and methods to suggest musical meaning.

12 Byron Almén, A Theory of Musical Narrative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008). 13 Almén, 222. 14 Michael Leslie Klein and Nicholas W. Reyland, Music and Narrative Since 1900 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013). 15 Byron Almén and Robert S. Hatten, “Narrative Engagement with Twentieth-Century Music: Possibilities and Limits,” in Music and Narrative Since 1900, edited by Michael L. Klein and Nicholas Reyland (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 82. 5

There are fewer works analyzing narrativity in minimalist music. Pwyll ap Sion and

Tristan Evans’s “Parallel Symmetries? Exploring Relationships between Minimalist Music and

Multimedia Forms” studied the visual media with which the music is associated to describe how minimalistic music gains meaning.16 They also describe minimalistic music’s philosophy as neutral, objective, malleable and coloristic, and these qualities allow it to adapt to different

“visual landscapes and emotional spaces.”17 “Tropics of Minimalism” touches on the concept of minimalism in dance, which began as plain, non-narrative, non-manipulative exercises and then gradually transformed into a medium of mysticism and mixed media.18 Although these sources provide insight into the definition of minimalism, they do not cover theoretical analysis of any specific examples in music.

Timothy Johnson’s “Minimalism: Aesthetic, Style or Technique?” provides an in-depth discussion of minimalism’s three different definitions: minimalism as an aesthetic, as a style, and as a technique, with the last definition surviving as the most accurate representation of minimalism.19 Johnson provides specific musical analysis to represent the styles and techniques that are described in his definitions.

Edward Strickland’s Minimalism: Origins enters into deeper discussion about the origins and philosophy of minimalism in all genres of art.20 The “sound” section on music delves into contributions by composers such as La Monte Young, John Cage, and Terry Riley.

Characteristics of early minimalism include the reintroduction of tonality and repetition of

16 Pwyll ap Siôn and Tristian Evans, “Parallel Symmetries? Exploring Relationships between Minimalist Music and Multimedia Forms” (First International Conference on Minimalist Music, 2007), http://minimalismsociety.org/wp- content/uploads/2016/01/ap-Sion-and-Evans.pdf. 17 Ibid., 10. 18 Marcia B. Siegel, “Tropics of Minimalism,” The Hudson Review 32, no. 3 (1979), 418. 19 Timothy A. Johnson, “Minimalism: Aesthetic, Style, or Technique?,” The Musical Quarterly 78, no. 4 (1994): 742–73. 20 Edward Strickland, Minimalism: Origins (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993). 6

musical segments. Some composers were influenced by popular music and modal jazz. This research helps us to understand what the minimalism movement embodied and how it influenced future musicians.

These sources provide a foundation for further investigation into musical narrative, meaning in music, and minimalism but they do not provide narrative analysis of contemporary music or of minimalistic music.

Chapter Overview

This treatise is divided into three sections. The first chapter gives an overview of musical narrative and the possibility of narrative in minimalist music. The components of analyzing musical narrative according to Almén’s theory of musical narrative are explained as they will be used in analyzing Mazzoli’s works. Following a discussion of minimalism and its philosophy, twentieth-century techniques that imply narrativity are explained in order to provide the basis for finding oppositional elements in minimalist music. The second chapter delves into Missy

Mazzoli’s background, including her interest in social justice and her compositional influences.

It shows how her own life experiences have impacted her compositional choices, approaches, and style. The last chapter explains the musical elements in three of Mazzoli’s solo piano works that help determine a musical narrative. Using Almén’s theory of musical narrative, elements of order and transgression will be identified to find a plot archetype. From the analysis, performance suggestions will be provided.

CHAPTER 1 IS THERE NARRATIVITY IN MINIMALISM?

Narrativity in musical works is difficult to define. According to Seymour Chatman, narrative includes events and existents, and the causes and effects between events and existents.21

Events are caused by existents, or subjects of the narrative, and in exchange, existents are affected by events. In instrumental music, the lack of text leaves room for the imagination of performers and listeners to interpret meaning beyond a simple plot. Jean-Jacques Nattiez believes “music is not a narrative” and any narrative claim using formal analysis is not necessary.22 Susan McClary claimed that the “great era of narrative in music” ended with the abandonment of common-practice tonality.23 Other scholars, including Rebecca Leydon, argue that loss of tonality does not correlate with loss of narrative.24 Because of differing philosophies there are different methods for analyzing narrative. If music contained narrativity, would it be subjective and open to interpretation, or objective as a result of musical cues? Even with specific narrative approaches where there are concrete cues found in gestures and topics, the interpretation determined by the performer or listener is at some level subjective. Although there is disagreement on the significance of musical narrativity, many have agreed on the similarity between musical discourse and literary discourse, so we can draw methods from literary discourse and apply them to musical discourse.

21 Nattiez and Ellis, 241. 22 Ibid. 23 Klein and Reyland, 30. 24 Rebecca Leydon, “Narrativity, Descriptivity, and Secondary Parameters: Ecstasy Enacted in Salvatore Sciarrino’s Infinito nero,” in Music and Narrative Since 1900, edited by Michael L. Klein and Nicholas Reyland (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 308. 8

Narrative in the musical sense must be compared to narrative in the literary sense, as narrativity is derived from literature. In literature, a narrative consists of events that occur in a linear dimension with relationships between causes and effects.25 The author places actions in time using text, and readers interpret the text. When listeners interpret music as a narrative, they also are trying to determine a linear sequence of events.26 If listeners create a narrative for themselves, they do so with language, thus involving words that are not necessarily originally associated with the music.

In literature, actors and actions are known and stories are concrete. These stories may be transferred into different media, such as film and poetry, which may alter the discourse of the narrative.27 Discourse is based on how the story is manipulated through techniques such as similes and metaphors, and style of prose.

Music contains discourse, but not stories. One may listen to a piece and imagine conflict, but different listeners would interpret the parties and details within the conflict differently. When there is discourse in the music there is the potential for narrativity. To find musical discourse’s placement in time, one can observe repetitions, returns, preparations, expectations, resolutions, and the level of melodic syntax.28 The organization of narrative in music can be determined by levels of discourse, while narrativity in literature is determined by levels of the story.29 In literature, moments are being created that can be made up with a definite subject and predicate, but in music listeners must create their own realities based on semiology.30 In addition to

25 Nattiez and Ellis, 242. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid., 244. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 9

deeming effective narrative approaches as “metaphorical illusion,”31 Nattiez believes the form and the reactions produced by discourse become more useful than Schenkerian narration and musical metaphors.32 Although, when one cannot put words to the discourse, the music then becomes “a narrative which relates nothing.”33 The discussion on lack of narrative in music is important to understand in order to carefully decide how to study musical scores. Almén proposes methods to avoid as much ambiguity as possible in order to find narrative archetypes.

Elements of Musical Narrative Analysis

Gestures

Because narrativity in music can be subjective or ambiguous, gestures are a tool to interpret musical language and narrativity. In Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes,

Robert Hatten delves into musical meaning through the lens of gestures and their relationship to the human experience.34 Musical gestures are not only the physical creation of the sound but also the expressive meaning they communicate, which can be shown through performance or understood through listening.35 Gestures can be inferred from musical notation in a composition and from performance through “communicative expressive, energetic shaping through time

(including features of musicality such as beat, rhythm, timing of exchanges, contour, and intensity).”36 As Hatten explains, they are comprised of specific elements, including timbres, articulations, dynamics, tempi, and pacing, and they function in relationship with other aspects of

31 Nattiez and Ellis, 244. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid., 245. 34 Hatten. 35 Ibid., 93. 36 Ibid., 109 10

the musical syntax.37 They can be simple or complex; obvious or subtle; intentional or unintentional. Furthermore, a performer can bring out a gesture more or less depending on her interpretation, which can then impact a listener’s interpretation of meaning.

Topics

Gestures may also contribute to higher-level syntheses, such as topics.38 Hatten defines topics as “style types that possess strong correlations or associations with expressive meaning.”39

Topics such as pastoral style, singing style, and dance styles, are implied by gestural elements in the music; they suggest extramusical ideas that contribute to the possibility of narrativity.

Analyzing changes in topics within a musical work assists in determining narrative trajectories.

Interpreting Gestures

Interpreting gestures involves many variables and complexities, but it is essential to understanding narrativity in music. Hatten has condensed the way humans interpret gestures and synthesize sensations into the following categories:

1. Object or event

2. Plausible agency or cause-effect relationship

3. Movement/direction/intensity/character

4. Emotional valency

5. Any necessary responses as well as any desirable ones40

37 Ibid., 94. 38 Hatten, 94. 39 Ibid, 68. 40 Ibid., 108. 11

These categories are useful for understanding how gestures relate to narrative. Each category is complex in its own way. Cultural and societal differences can influence how gestures and topics are interpreted by performers and listeners. Because language is also built on gestural communication, with contours and stresses in intonation, musical gestures should be also seen as communication devices shaped through time.

Markedness and Transvaluation

The relationship between gestures within the musical syntax determines markedness in the music. Markedness is reflected by the asymmetrical oppositions and differences in musical elements, including gestures. Hatten’s theory of markedness contributes to expressing the structure of a work.41 An example of gestural opposition is a rising motive against a falling motive. Markedness is a one-dimensional aspect of musical meaning and is the first step in interpreting musical meaning. Hatten defines markedness as “the asymmetrical valuation of opposition.”42 This asymmetry refers to the unequal value of opposition within the same musical element. The marked term is more narrowly defined and distributed, which suggests that it will have a narrower meaning than its counterpart unmarked term.43 The unmarked term is usually introduced first, occurs more frequently, and represents the normal.44 Marked terms represent disruption or interruption of the norm. Since markedness is asymmetrical, the meaning can suggest growth, depending on how the marked terms are treated.45 The oppositions throughout a piece can be placed within a hierarchy in order to determine a narrative trajectory.

41 Hatten, Interpreting Musical Gestures, 11. 42 Byron Almén, A Theory of Musical Narrative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 47. 43 An example given by Hatten shows that the unmarked word “man” may refer to a human male and the general population of human beings, while the marked word “woman” only refers to the human female. 44 Almén, 47. 45 Hatten, 12. 12

The ranking of markedness assigns values to musical units based on their relative positions in the hierarchy and the “totality of interactions” made by the musical units.46 “Rank values” are determined based on systematic differences between sounds, such as pitch, register, degree of consonance, tonality, and meter. The relative values interact through change, conflict, and confrontation, creating a narrative through what Liszka calls transvaluation.47

Transvaluation tracks changes in rank value based on intended perceptions by the listener and depends on what is considered dominant at particular points. James Jakób Liszka defines transvaluation as “a rule-like semiosis which revaluates the perceived, imagined, or conceived markedness and rank relations of a referent as delimited by the rank and markedness relations of the system of its signans and the teleology of the sign user.”48 This process relies on interpreters, their view on signs, and their ability to register change and manipulation of signs within the system’s hierarchy. Liszka designated the first two levels of myth narrative as the “agential level,” analysis of the musical narrative involving identification of markedness, and the

“actantial level,” determining rank relationships and relative values within the musical work.49

Plot Archetypes

Liszka’s third level is the “narrative level,” in which the rank relationships and values are placed on a timeline to determine plot archetype. Anthony Newcomb defines plot archetype as a

“standard series of mental states.”50 The evolution of mental states is reflected through changes

46 Almén, 48. 47 Ibid., 50. 48 Ibid., 51. 49 Ibid., 55. 50 Anthony Newcomb, “Once More ‘Between Absolute and Program Music’: Schumann’s Second Symphony,” 19th- Century Music 7 no. 3 (1984): 240. Anthony Newcomb is the theorist who introduced the idea of plot archetype into critical theory of music. 13

in form based on elements such as motives, cadences, and harmonic successions.51 In A Theory of Musical Narrative, Almén borrows Northrop Frye’s four mythoi, or plot archetypes, as well as

Ero Tarasti and Liszka’s semiotic approaches to transvaluation, to create his own method for analyzing musical narrative. His analyses support the flexibility of using diverse methods in order to determine the most applicable method for narrative interpretation.52

Frye’s four mythoi were fashioned from a cyclical model of narratives. In this model, narratives move from a state of innocence or happiness at the top of the imagined circle to a significant experience or catastrophe at the bottom and then back.53 Based on this circle, the four mythoi are as follows:

• romance, the narrative of innocence

• tragedy, the narrative of the fall, moving downward from innocence to experience

• irony, the narrative of experience

• comedy, the narrative of renewal, from experience to recovered happiness.

Liszka reformulates Frye’s mythoi to classify transvaluation through combinations of two binary oppositions: order/transgression and victory/defeat. The four permutations of the oppositions are as follows:

• Romance: victory of an order-imposing hierarchy over its transgression

• Tragedy: defeat of a transgression by an order-imposing hierarchy

• Irony: defeat of an order-imposing hierarchy by a transgression

• Comedy: victory of a transgression over an order-imposing hierarchy54

51 Almén, 234. 52 Ibid., 222. 53 Ibid., 64. 54 See Appendix B for visuals of the transvaluation profiles. 14

It is important to note that order does not equate with stability but instead refers to the first hierarchical configuration of a work. Transgression does not necessarily require instability but arises from the marked elements of the work.

Almén applies Liszka’s transvaluative approach to music. If one can articulate the oppositions in a work and observe the transvaluation of the oppositions, a narrative trajectory can be formulated. The four narrative archetypes (romance, tragedy, irony, and comedy) are not only determined by music analysis but also by the listener’s or analyst’s point of view. Understand that exploration of the narrative archetypes does not explicitly create a story. This method of analysis is usually applied to tonal music before 1900. Can it also be applied to post-minimalist music?

Defining Minimalism

The emergence of minimalist style in art is most often associated with the 1960s as a

“counterbalance” to Pop and Op art.55 Barbara Rose described Pop art as “the reflection of our environment” and Minimal art as “its antidote.”56 Minimal Art and Minimalism (with a capital

M) are restricted to those artists of the 1960s who shared a “philosophical commitment to the abstract, anti-compositional, material object.”57 In music, minimalism emerged as a reaction to the complexity of serialism. La Monte Young, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Terry Riley were the composers who pioneered minimalist music.

55 Strickland, 4. 56 Ibid. 57 Frances Colpitt, Minimal Art: The Critical Perspective (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1990) Cited in Strickland, 5. 15

Minimalism can be defined as having a “severity of means, clarity of form, and simplicity of structure and texture.”58 It avoids compositional detail, wealth of texture, and structural complexity.59 Minimalist art often embodies stasis and anti-development. In minimalist music, this is expressed through reduction and repetition of material, unchanging or slowly changing harmonies, drones, and often silence. While these simple definitions and characteristics can serve as basis for understanding minimalism, there are several other ways it can be viewed in musical compositions.

Minimalism can be viewed as an aesthetic, a style, or a technique. As an aesthetic, minimalism is characterized by non-narrative, the lack of goals and motion, and the removal of subjective feelings.60 In contrast to the goal-oriented trajectories of functional tonality in traditional Western music, minimalist pieces focus on unfolding the process. The lack of traditional direction creates a sense of the suspension of time.61 Examples of minimalist composers with works that represented minimalism as an aesthetic include Reich, Riley, and

Young.

Minimalism as a style attempts to draw from relationships between minimalist composers and to sort the composers into categories. Minimalism as a style does not exclusively focus on process, but also includes other characteristics such as continuous, flowing rhythmic figurations, and harmonies that are often simple and diatonic, such as triads and seventh chords.62 Extensive melodic lines are nonexistent, and rhythm comes to the forefront.63 For instance, Phillip Glass’s

58 Strickland, 4. 59 Strickland, 5. 60 Johnson, 744. 61 Ibid., 745. 62 Ibid., 748. 63 Ibid. 16

Music for 18 Musicians (1978) represents minimalism as a style through the work’s goal- oriented harmonic changes, lack of long melodic lines, and repetitive rhythmic patterns.64

As a technique, minimalism can be defined as a “general reduction of materials and emphasis on repetitive schemes and stasis.”65 This allows compositions to use features of the minimalist style while combining with other compositional techniques and remaining recognizable as a minimalist work. Use of at least two minimalist techniques would be enough to suggest that a piece is using minimalist compositional techniques. For example, early pieces by

Mozart contain a simple harmonic palette but because they do not employ other minimalist techniques, they would not be recognized as minimalist works. At the other end of the spectrum, the work of John Adams, for example, demonstrates a departure from minimalism as a style by including characteristics of other compositional styles, such as neo-classicism and neo- romanticism, to explore the “expressive emotional potential” of minimalism.66

In the realm of minimalism, musical narrative has been described as “the conception of the non-narrative work-in-progress.”67 However, there are instances of narrativity in minimalist works that can be explored using Almén and Hatten’s theory of gestures and transvaluation.

Traditional strategies for cueing agency (themes and motives) may not be present in music after

1900, but alternative modes of transvaluation can be drawn from common-practice tonality and found within sequences in minimalist music. Certain pieces by minimalist composers focus on intentionally avoiding or preventing narrative—e.g., Philip Glass’s opera Einstein on the Beach

64 Johnson, 749. 65 Ibid., 750. 66 Ibid., 752. 67 Elaine Broad, “A New X? An Examination of the Aesthetic Foundations of Early Minimalism,” Music Research Forum 5 (1990): 51-52. Cited in Strickland, 744. 17

(1976) and Reich’s Piano Phase (1989); as Almén and Hatten have argued, however, the human mind looks for order in the “apparently unordered and chaotic.”68

Almén and Hatten have examined markedness or its absence in narrativity in twentieth- century music. Table 1 displays temporality techniques from Almén and Hatten’s outline of post-

1900 musical techniques and aesthetics that have implications for narrativity (for the full outline see Appendix A). These techniques address issues such as agency and temporality. Music’s relationship with time allows for it to be considered a “temporal art” and provides the possibility of narrativity.69 In the context of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, temporality is reliant on “stylistically constrained sequences,” sequences that hold expectations based on the musical style it embodies.70 Transvaluation can be determined by considering the change in these temporality techniques within the work’s musical hierarchy. The techniques encompass three categories of mode that are also found in music prior to 1900: lyrical, ritual, and trance. The lyrical mode focuses on a mood rather than a temporal change; the ritual mode focuses on the performance of sequences; and the trance mode moves consciousness to another plane in order to transfer the temporal into the eternal.71 Almén and Hatten’s outline of post-1900 techniques incorporate these three modes with principles of narrative. The markedness and the presence or absence of these techniques provide evidence for narrative in minimalist-influenced music.

Temporality Topics in Mazzoli’s Music

Some of the temporality topics arise in Missy Mazzoli’s music. In Table 1, the S is an

68 Almén and Hatten, 61. 69 Almén and Hatten, 63 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid., 61. 18

Table 1. Excerpt of Almén and Hatten’s Outline of Twentieth-Century Techniques and Aesthetics with Implications for Narrative Interpretation72

abbreviation for “stylistically constrained sequences,” which depend on “stylistically informed temporality.”73 These stylistically constrained sequences have permutations that may involve reordering pitch and/or rhythmic/metric patterns, or obfuscation of the sense of S. Obfuscation of the S can be achieved through ellipsis, which leaves out portions of S. Montage effects include disruption or interruption of S, stratification, psychological montage, and surreal montage.

Stratification occurs when there are two or more simultaneous Ss. Psychological montage represents the disruption or overlapping of consciousness, which may be present or reminiscent.

An example of psychological montage is Maurice Ravel’s recall of earlier dance motives near

72 Ibid., 64. 73 Ibid., 65. 19

the end of Valses nobles et sentimentales (1911).74 Surreal montage also overlaps Ss, but represents the overlapping of dream states or altered forms of consciousness; for instance, refer to Arnold Schoenberg’s monodrama Ertwartung (1909).75

The absence of a clear S creates dissolution of temporality. The following effects function differently, but all imply timelessness or lack of temporality. Suspended time holds an S under a fermata to create the illusion of timelessness. Cyclical time recycles events, as exemplified in Erik Satie’s Vexations (1893). Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “moment form,” which influenced moment time, overcomes the “concept of duration” and considers events to be independent of one another, which implies lack of development.76 Created through repetitive or continuous structures that exceed a typical S, trance time occurs when all events seem to occur simultaneously.77 This transforms our view of events into a vertical view, and temporality is lost.

Slow-motion time is felt when sequences are extremely slow, such that harmonic progression, although present, seems not to exist and the lasting impression is stasis.78 When a composer wants to intentionally deny temporality, negation of time occurs. As an example, John Cage wanted to give sounds their freedom and to free listeners from any burden of interpretation, removing discourse within the music.79

Changes in emphasis on these techniques within a minimalist musical work can create a hierarchy of values, which allows for a narrative based on the transvaluation. This is evidence of the possibility of narrative with or without tonal features and with or without textual support.80

74 Almén and Hatten, 66. 75 Ibid. 76 Almén and Hatten, 67. 77 Ibid., 68. 78 Ibid., 69. 79 Ibid., 71. 80 Ibid., 82. 20

Narrative is also largely determined by listeners and their interpretations. The flexibility of the narrative concept allows for the possibilities of narrative in post-minimalist music. This approach to narrative may help us understand a composer’s intended or unintended effects. Whether or not narrative is imposed in a work, this method can assist interpreters and listeners in finding a trajectory of events through transvaluation and enhance the performance of a work.

CHAPTER 2

MISSY MAZZOLI THE STORY-TELLER

Born on October 27, 1980 of Italian and Polish descent, Missy Mazzoli grew up in rural

Lansdale, Pennsylvania, where the musical community was primarily interested in traditional styles and only the most popular classical music.81 Without access to avant-garde and contemporary music, Mazzoli became fascinated with Beethoven’s life and works, especially his symphonies. She began composing at the age of ten and found it to be her “way into the world.”

Through her studies, Mazzoli was most influenced by Louis Andriessen, David Lang, and Aaron

Jay Kernis, composers experimenting with postwar serialism, postminimalism, and neo- romanticism. After receiving a bachelor’s degree from Boston University and a master’s degree from the Yale School of Music, Mazzoli moved to New York knowing she would not want to leave. She is currently on the composition faculty at the Mannes College of Music and has previously taught at Yale University and New York University.

Moving from a small town to the city, Mazzoli treats every day in New York as a

“victory.” The culture, smells, and languages of her neighborhood radiate nostalgia for her

Italian and Polish heritage. Her awareness of community reflects her interest in human beings and their interactions. Mazzoli’s own identity, experiences, and social interests have led her to a passion for story-telling and dramatic elements in her creative work.

Mazzoli’s oeuvre contains a range of genres, including orchestral and chamber works and solo works for piano and strings, but recently opera has become a significant medium for her creative work. Her transition from instrumental music to opera was organic and seamless, as she

81 The following discussion is based on Dmitry Trakovsky and Paloma Veinstein, Impromptu Episode 4: Missy Mazzoli, YouTube video, 7:15, January 14, 2019, https://youtu.be/ly-lTXg025c. 22

was already approaching instrumental music in a dramatic way. As she explained, she was already “thinking of instruments as characters, sometimes in opposition to each other, sometimes together, but always with personality. So the leap to opera was natural. It felt like something I’d been waiting for, nothing short of meeting my destiny.”82

It was upon reading the journals of Swiss adventurer Isabelle Eberhardt that Mazzoli was inspired to begin writing operas, telling stories of powerful female characters. These female characters are placed in “impossible situations”83 and act as avatars for contemporary fears, desires, and hopes. Eberhardt’s story became the focus of her one act opera Song from the

Uproar: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt (2012). Based on the film by Lars von

Trier, Mazzoli’s second opera, Breaking the Waves (2016), tells the story of McNeil, a young

Scottish woman in the 1970s who finds herself caught between the demands of her husband, her family, and the domineering presence of the Calvinist church. Mazzoli’s most recent opera,

Proving Up (2018), tells the story of “Ma” Zegner, who struggles to maintain a sense of control and order through obsessive domestic chores, one of the only permissible roads to power for a woman in 1860s Nebraska. Mazzoli’s successful story-telling has led to commissions not only from the Metropolitan Opera in 2018 but also from the Washington National Opera and Opera

Philadelphia, as well as a current residency with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

The stories told in her operas represent human relationships, but also specific difficulties women journey through no matter the context. Experiencing life through the woman’s lens has

82 Kate Molleson, “Missy Mazzoli: ‘Breaking the Waves Deals with Big Ideas. Opera Is a Place for Big Ideas,’” The Guardian, August 16, 2019, accessed January 19, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/aug/16/missy- mazzoli-breaking-the-waves-deals-with-big-ideas-opera-is-a-place-for-big-ideas. 83 Kate Stringer, “Complex Women, Impossible Situations,” The Boston Musical Intelligencer, November 6, 2016, accessed January 15, 2020, https://www.classical-scene.com/2016/11/06/mazzoli-boston/. 23

allowed Mazzoli to approach these characters with personal empathy and nuance.84 Her experience as a woman in the field of composition and in life has influenced the stories she chooses to tell. As previously said, her operas contain the stories of women overcoming struggles and some instrumental works such as Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Pianos are inspired by stories of women.

Mazzoli’s identity as a woman is strongly represented in her ongoing fight for gender equality. Her professional work as a composer-musician and the social initiatives with which she is involved express her individuality as a composer and support the individuality of other women. Her operas tell stories of women overcoming challenges, ones that may be relatable to the modern-day woman. She speaks publicly about gender disparities and differing expectations for different genders in the composition business.85 She co-founded the Luna Lab, a mentorship program for female-identifying composers between the ages of thirteen and nineteen. Mazzoli’s passion for social justice issues, especially gender, inspires and creates more opportunities for the next generation. Each year for the past four years, a handful of Luna Lab fellows have been mentored and supported by successful female composers and performers, showing young female composers that their creative identities have a valuable place both now and in the future.

Mazzoli’s advocacy for the voices of the younger generation is mirrored in her musical work’s embodiment of communication, individuality, and community.

As an active pianist and keyboardist, Mazzoli often performs with Victoire, an all-female band she founded in 2008 that is dedicated to presenting her own compositions. Initially,

Mazzoli chose the members of Victoire based on their musical ability, but soon realized it was

84 Julie Zeilinger, “An Interview with Groundbreaking Composer Missy Mazzoli,” Women’s Media Center, September 10, 2018, accessed January 15, 2020, http://www.womensmediacenter.com/fbomb/an-interview-with- groundbreaking-composer-missy-mazzoli. 85 Ibid. 24

important to her to work in an all-female environment, which is rare in the musical world.86 She considers this group “a safe place to express their creativity, to try new things, and fail spectacularly in a safe environment.”87 Mazzoli has expressed that while she has always enjoyed the process of performing, she has found that performing her own compositions is exponentially more rewarding because of the intimate nature of communication. Mazzoli finds communication and human connection to be important in all facets of her career and life and continues to share this through her musical output and teaching.

Mazzoli’s interest in aspects of the human experience, especially relationships and the desire for connection, is at the heart of her creative work. Elements of human relationships, such as success, joy, failure, jealousy, and hate, have influenced Mazzoli’s approach to writing. In addition to incorporating these themes into her operas, many of her instrumental works have titles that express human characteristics and behaviors, such as Heartbreaker and Lies You Can

Believe In (2006). Human interaction is symbolized or conveyed in the music through Mazzoli’s experimentation with melodies and harmonies working against or supporting one another in what she describes as a very “human way.”88 Dissonance and tension are created by juxtaposing distantly related chords and layering irregular rhythms. Thus, even in Mazzoli’s instrumental music there are elements of communication and implied narrativity.

Like many contemporary composers, Mazzoli believes labels are reductive and limiting, and that they hold music to the boundaries of the past. While Mazzoli has sought to create a distinctive style and new sound experiences for listeners, her compositional language has been impacted by composers and styles of the recent and distant past. She has cited Meredith Monk,

86 Zeilinger. 87 Ibid. 88 Trakovsky and Veinstein. 25

Beethoven, John Luther Adams, Philip Glass, and Delia Derbyshire as the most impactful.89

Each has influenced a different aspect of her compositional approach and style, and these influences are evident throughout her solo piano works.

Meredith Monk (b. 1942) is a performer, composer, and interdisciplinary artist. She experimented with using the whole body and the voice as an instrument without text and pioneered what is now called “extended vocal technique” and “interdisciplinary performance.”90

Although Monk’s writing uses minimalistic techniques of repetition and modal harmonies, her wide experimentation with sound has created avant-garde soundscapes that have been described as “simultaneously ancient and modern.”91 Monk’s experimentation with sound has influenced

Mazzoli’s own exploration of sound and her expectations of music’s capacity to make people feel. As she has expressed, Mazzoli searches for her own individual sound that reflects present day life and aims to create music that can only be created now.92

The influence of Beethoven on Mazzoli’s work is primarily found in his expression of musical drama.93 Beethoven’s use of form, motivic development, and harmonic contrasts invoke his own form of narrative. His manipulation of rhythmic values and emphasis on unexpected harmonies also contribute to the drama. Likewise, the drama in Mazzoli’s music is reflected by harmonies in the counterpoint that interact to create tension and resolution.

Mazzoli has also drawn minimalist techniques from John Luther Adams (b. 1953) and

Philip Glass (b. 1937). Adams’s musical language is often characterized by complex rhythmic patterns. In Become Ocean (2014), for example, rapid five-note patterns in certain sections of the

89 Sawdey. 90 Meredith Monk, “Meredith Monk,” accessed January 15, 2020, https://www.meredithmonk.org/about/biography/. 91 Tom Service, “A Guide to Meredith Monk’s Music,” The Guardian, November 19, 2012, accessed February 12, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2012/nov/19/contemporary-music-guide-meredith-monk. 92 Travosky and Veinstein. 93 Missy Mazzoli, Interview by Christina Lai, Email, January 15, 2020. 26

orchestra are layered with six-note patterns and seven-note patterns in other sections.94 This rhythmic layering in Adams’s music evokes wave-like imagery and naturalistic atmospheres.

Mazzoli uses similar techniques, manipulating rhythmic patterns to create dramatic effects. The contrast of rhythmic regularity and irregularity, as well as complex layering, supports a narrative trajectory in her music.

Glass’s approach to music has involved discovering different modes of listening, specifically one which is listening without anticipation or the influence of memory.95 Glass has aimed to create atmospheres consisting purely of “sound” and sustaining the texture, quality or reality of that musical experience.96 In a similar vein, Mazzoli has also found new ways to create soundscapes, and they are unique to her musical style using carefully placed consonances and dissonances, and rhythmic manipulation.

Delia Derbyshire (1937-2001) was a pioneer of electroacoustic music. Derbyshire’s studies in mathematics at the University of Cambridge were foundational to her musical compositions. She became interested in the electroacoustic approach when she heard Edgard

Varèse’s Poème Électronique (1958) at the Brussels World’s Fair in 1958.97 At that time, synthesizers and computers did not exist, so Derbyshire recorded sounds on tape and invented techniques for manipulation, such as slowing down and speeding up tapes, to create her desired soundscape.98 Her manipulations of live recorded sounds continue to influence composers and musicians in both classical and popular arenas to this day, especially as current technology

94 Mark Swed, “Critic’s Notebook: Becoming John Luther Adams: The Evolution of One of America’s Hottest Composers,” Los Angeles Times, May 3, 2018, accessed January 15, 2020, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/classical/la-ca-cm-john-luther-adams-notebook-20180503-story.html. 95 Klein and Reyland, 68. 96 Ibid. 97 David Butler, “Delia Derbyshire,” BBC, accessed January 15, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/100- voices/pioneering-women/women-of-the-workshop/delia-derbyshire. 98 Kara Blake, The Delian Mode - Delia Derbyshire Documentary, 2009, YouTube video, 25:10, May 5, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXnmSgaeGAI. 27

allows for easier creation and manipulation of sound. Mazzoli is among those who have been influenced by Derbyshire’s work. She frequently uses “fixed media” and electronic music in many of her instrumental and operatic works. Two of her solo piano works, Orizzonte and

Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Pianos¸ feature manipulation of sine waves, and recorded sound.

Mazzoli’s music is often classified as minimalist due to the repetitive and continuous rhythmic flow, but her music is not characterized by minimalism’s lack of direction and lack of narrative. Through her musical works, Mazzoli draws the listener in with something familiar, such as a repeated melodic fragment. She then takes the familiarity and presents it in a different way that may be unexpected or uncomfortable, such as presenting the melody with different chords underneath. Complex harmonies, dissonance, lyricism, and development in her works suggest narrative. The mixture of tonal and atonal, dissonance and “strange sounds” assist in creating drama.99 The manipulation of rhythms helps drive the narrative. Mazzoli hopes performers will recognize and project the dramatic arc in “an interesting way” for listeners to gain a sense of the journey she believes the composer, performer, and listener experience together.

99 Trakovsky and Veinstein. 28

CHAPTER 3 NARRATIVE IN MISSY MAZZOLI’S SOLO PIANO WORKS

Orizzonte

Missy Mazzoli’s oldest publicly released piece Orizzonte (2004) features electric sounds that contain sine waves gently overlapping with melodic sounds from the acoustic piano.

Orizzonte, or horizons in Italian, was composed in Amsterdam for Mazzoli’s band Hills Not

Skyscrapers, which was dedicated to combining live electronics, composition, and improvisation.100 When she began composing the work, the piano available to her had been left in the rain for a year, so she wrote the piece using the only working keys.101

Orizzonte is written without bar lines, which allows the performer freedom to control the space and time between the notes. Together, the droning of the sine waves, created using

SuperCollider software, with the improvisatory and expressive piano melody create a unique soundscape, suggesting horizons and their colors. The musical elements of the piece projects the meditative and reflective human nature that is reflected by horizons amidst natural landscape.

Although the title of this piece suggests imagery of landscape, musical elements and their markedness allow for narrative analysis. Throughout the piece there are changes in rhythms, twentieth-century techniques mentioned by Almén and Hatten, and pitches that mark transgression. Markedness in Orizzonte is found in the oppositions of motivic direction, rhythm, twentieth-century techniques, and tonal centers. A summary can be found in Table 2.

100 Missy Mazzoli, “Missy Mazzoli 'Orizzonte' LPR Lisa Moore Piano," YouTube video, 25:10, May 5, 2015, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pnBt-NtgEc. 101 Ibid. 29

Transgression of the following musical elements will illuminate a possible plot archetype that supports a narrative.

Table 2. Order and Transgressions in Orizzonte

Order Transgression B diminished & A Major E major

Longer rhythmic Fragmented, values syncopated rhythms Preservation of S Montage effects Rising motive Falling motive

Repetition is prominent throughout this work and other works by Mazzoli, but certain elements still develop in the music. Orizzonte begins with an electroacoustic sine wave centered on C-sharp. The piano enters with a four-note motive in the right hand, followed by the entrance of the left hand, confirming the key of A major (Example 1). The next sequence contains pitches that revolve around B, followed by a sequence of pitches that revolve around C-sharp (Examples

2 and 3). The sequence that is manipulated with the shortest rhythmic values is centered on a B diminished triad in the bass (Example 4). As the tonality strays farther from A major, the rank value of A major lowers. The work concludes with a four-note motive centered on F-sharp, but the electronic sounds contain an E major third, implying polytonality (Example 5). Initial order is represented by A major, but we find that although the conclusion contains electronic sounds ending in E major, the dominant of A, the piano part presents conflict. A major attempts to reestablish order, but fails to do so. The transgressive behavior of the B and F-sharp motives increased their rank values and overcame the hierarchy of order.

Example 1. Opening of Orizzonte

Example 2. Orizzonte, motive revolving around B

Example 3. Orizzonte, motive revolving around C-sharp

Example 4. Orizzonte, motive centered on B diminished triad

Example 5. Orizzonte, concluding motive

The rhythmic values of the initial A major motive are mostly long whole notes or half notes with interspersed syncopation, which when played with freedom may not sound syncopated. Shorter rhythmic values, such as triplets and sixteenths, are introduced at the beginning of the second motive shown in Example 2. The rhythmic values continue to shorten and become more complex toward the B minor triad motive at the apex of the piece. At the conclusion, the longer whole notes and half notes return without the syncopation caused by the shorter notes. The transgressive shorter and irregular rhythms develop and increase their rank values, but the longer notes attempt to reestablish order at the end.

The temporality techniques used in this work include the preservation of S and montage effects (refer to Table 1). Preservation of S includes various permutations of S where elements such as rhythm, pitch, and form can be reordered while still maintaining the fundamental S. The first motive maintains the repetition of four pitches in both hands, but the rhythm is manipulated to create tension. This continues until the motive that surrounds a B diminished triad enters

(Example 4). This repetition and manipulation of the sequence represents the preservation of S.

Before the motive in Example 4 has the chance to dominate, another S interrupts (Example 6).

This interruption by a new technique increases the tension and also increases the rank value of transgression. The technique used here is the montage effect. The disruption leads into shifting between two juxtaposed Ss that show contrast while also representing connection by having similar pitches in the melody and the same bass line. The work displays the trajectory of the preservation of S to the montage effect, the marked element, back to the return of the preservation of S.

Example 6. Orizzonte, S that interrupts Example 4’s S

The opposition in melodic motives assists in finding narrativity. The opening motive consists of two pairs of rising major thirds. Throughout the first half, the motives following the first motive maintain rising figures. At the penultimate melodic motive, the motivic direction

changes (Example 7). The penultimate melodic motive along with the last motive contain falling gestures. The final motive (refer to Example 5) maintains the opening motive’s bass line but includes a tenor voice that opposes the bass’s directional movement. The marked falling motive increases its rank value, increasing transgression. Further increasing transgression, the concluding motive ends incomplete, leaving out the fourth note of its pattern (Example 8).

Without the resolution, the end seems unfinished. The falling motive and the incompletion at the end are marked, indicating a strong presence of transgressive behavior.

Example 7. Falling motive

Example 8. Orizzonte, last iteration of last motive

At first glance, there may seem to be victory of order’s preservation of S and the longer rhythmic values, reflecting a romantic plot archetype (victory of an order-imposing hierarchy over its transgression), but order was too badly damaged by the transgressive values to the point that the last motive is left incomplete. The marked transgressive elements prevent important

musical elements of order from successfully returning, leaving this work with an ironic plot archetype (defeat of an order-imposing hierarchy by a transgression).

Performance Suggestions

This ironic plot archetype may suggest that performers can make certain interpretations to project the defeat of order by transgression. Although the composition already represents the narrative through the elements of rhythmic manipulation and dynamic markings, the performer can enhance the personality of specific musical elements. The beginning can be performed calmly, with a clear projection of sound, and without too much dynamic change to represent positive order and stability. The middle section that contains smaller rhythmic values should be played with greater intensity, projecting a feeling of conflict. The end should be played in a manner to convey a sense of defeat through a veiled sound world at the pianissimo marking. The last incomplete phrase should be played as if the phrase were “to be continued.” Mazzoli’s dynamic markings support each section’s differing intensities, and hairpin markings indicate the increase and release of tension.

Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Piano

Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Piano (2007) reflects Mazzoli’s interest in strong female characters. Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904) was a Swiss-Algerian explorer and writer who lived and travelled extensively through North Africa. Eberhardt was an unconventional example for her time. Not only did Eberhardt write short stories under a male pseudonym, she also dressed as a man and eventually adopted the name Si Mahmoud Saadi. Her adventures included joining an

Islamic sect against European conventions, becoming involved in Algerian politics, surviving an

assassination attempt by sabre, and dying in a desert flash flood. She believed in the power of masochism. She wrote, “Suffering is a very positive thing, for it sublimates the emotions and produces great courage or devotion; it creates the capacity for strong feelings and all- encompassing ideas.”102 Her unconventional life symbolizes female independence from traditional morality, belief, reason, and law.

Eberhardt and her adventures were Mazzoli’s inspiration for Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Piano. Mazzoli’s notes for the piece include the following:

Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Pianos imagines her riding on horseback through the desert, lost in thought, remembering sounds and sensations of her old life. Fragments of Schubert's A Major Sonata103 pierce her consciousness and are quickly suppressed. In her fatigue she dreams of a piano half-buried in sand, a flash flood of sheet music swirling around her.104

The narrative Mazzoli implies not only provides a guide for interpreters to imagine the piece’s trajectory, but also provides an emotional understanding. This strong female character’s human qualities of struggle, resilience, and acceptance inspired Mazzoli to tell a story with these qualities.

Using Almén’s method, Table 3 indicates the opposing musical elements that will be compared to find a narrative trajectory.

Table 3. Order and Transgressions in Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Pianos

Order Transgression Falling motive Rising motive Irregular rhythms/ syncopation Regular rhythms Trance time Psychological montage A Major C# major/F minor

102 Emma Garman, “Feminize Your Canon: Isabelle Eberhardt,” The Paris Review, February 11, 2019, accessed February 19, 2020, https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/02/11/feminize-your-canon-isabelle-eberhardt/. 103 Fragments of a recorded Andantino from Franz Schubert’s A Major Sonata, D. 959 are found in the fixed media. 104 Missy Mazzoli, Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Piano (New York: G. Schirmer, 2007). 36

Motives in this piece contrast with each other in direct opposition. The opening begins with a falling second (Example 9). The opposing rising second first appears in m. 38 (Example

10). The rising seconds occur continuously and successively throughout the body of the piece.

The next most significant falling second appears in m. 278, where fragments of Schubert’s A

Major Sonata clearly emerge in the piano part (Example 11). The rising second’s rank value increases throughout the body of the piece, but at the conclusion the marked rising second fails to overcome the falling second motive. The falling seconds motive of the Schubert Sonata has a strong rank value and defeats the transgression of the opposing rising seconds.

Example 9. Opening piano motive, Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Pianos, mm. 1-31.

Example 10. Isabelle Eberhardt, mm. 32-47, showing falling motive in mm. 38-39.

The constant rhythmic manipulation indicates transgression. Order is represented by the irregular rhythms and syncopation that exist in all voices, such as in Examples 12 and 13.

Transgression is marked by the interruption of regular rhythmic quarter notes and eighth notes.

The most extended occurrence of regular eighth notes occurs in the build toward the climax and at the climax itself (Example 14). This section is also accompanied by a regular quarter-note pulsing from the soundtrack. At the climax, the constant eighths invoke greater insistence and exuberance (Example 15). The regularity may be viewed as positive due to its stability. The regular pulsing continues until irregular rhythms interrupt and the irregular rhythms continue until the end.

Example 11. Isabelle Eberhardt, mm. 277-82, showing borrowed fragment in m. 278 of Schubert’s Sonata in A Major D. 959, second movement

Example 12. Isabelle Eberhardt, mm. 64-68, irregular rhythm/syncopation.

Example 13. Isabelle Eberhardt, mm. 155-60, irregular rhythms between soprano and alto parts. 38

Example 14. Isabelle Eberhardt, mm. 173-78, regular rhythms in soundtrack and tenor voice.

The techniques in this work are more diverse than in Orizzonte. The progression of techniques used is as follows:

Trance time → Slow-motion time → Permutation of S → Psychological montage → Trance time

Trance time represents order, while slow-motion, permutation of S, and psychological montage represent transgression. The trance time seen in the beginning (refer to Example 9) embodies timelessness, since the listener cannot predict when pitches will change. This also returns at the end, as shown in Example 16. Slow-motion technique moves harmonies at a slow pace that makes the changes almost imperceptible. Mazzoli uses this technique almost like a recitative to push the plot forward (Example 17). Permutation of S (refer to Example 14) manipulates specific motives into different orders of pitches until the climax at m. 248 (Example 15). Psychological montage disrupts the brief return to trance time in order to establish the reminiscence of

Schubert’s A Major Sonata (refer to Example 11). The psychological montage’s interruption is the highest value of markedness because it alludes to another composition and disrupts order’s attempt to return. At the end, trance time and order prevail at a higher dynamic level, indicating a strong return.

Example 15. Isabelle Eberhardt, mm. 245-249, synchronized rhythms in all piano parts at m. 248.

Example 16. Isabelle Eberhardt, mm, 332-404, conclusion implementing trance time.

Example 17. Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Pianos, mm. 64-88, slow-motion time

The harmonies in Isabelle Eberhardt are carefully written to support the drama created by the previously mentioned elements. The electronics and the opening suggest A major and represent order. At locations where the technique changes, transgressive tonalities centering on

C-sharp and F-sharp minor arise. At m. 154, the tonal center begins to transition from A major to

C-sharp major and firmly arrives at C-sharp major at m. 173 (refer to Example 14), increasing the rank value of transgression. After the climax, there is a transition into the key of F-sharp minor beginning in m. 263 (Example 18). The key of A major attempts to interrupt intermittently, but F-sharp minor dominates for the moment at the psychological montage section at m. 278 (refer to Example 11). At the end, A major returns but is also accompanied by C major, resulting in dissonance between the C and C-sharp. Although A major tries to pervade at the end, it lacks stability due to the C major. The rank value of order may not be as strong as at the beginning.

Example 18. Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Pianos, mm. 260-270, transition into F-sharp minor with A major interruptions

The musical elements of order are negatively viewed due to the irregular rhythms and downward-falling motive. The F-sharp tonality represents the positively viewed lyrical excerpt of Schubert’s Sonata, which supports the A major key’s being negatively viewed. The harmonic transformations within the work travel from A major through other transgressive harmonies back 41

to A major, but the conclusion’s A major is accompanied by C major. Although trance time begins and ends the piece, other techniques dominate the work. The oppositions and transgressions of the musical elements over the piece’s trajectory mostly reflect the defeat of a transgression by an order-imposing hierarchy, but the defeat is not strong. Thus, this narrative reflects the romantic phase of a tragic plot archetype.

Performance Suggestions

With this knowledge of the narrative trajectory, the performer can approach the bookends of the piece differently. The beginning should be played with a projected sound, but with a feeling of searching for what is lost. The last fortissimo marking might initially indicate triumph, but if the performer viewed the order as negative, the chords from the piano could be played with less triumph and with more devastation. This can be done by playing exactly in time.

Specific motives can be played with distinctive characteristics based on whether the element is part of order or transgression. Falling seconds can be played with defeat or resolution while rising seconds can be played with the feeling of striving. The regular quarter notes and constant eighth notes should be played with determination because they represent transgression and conflict.

After studying the twentieth-century techniques, each contrasting section should contain its own soundscape. During “trance time” sections, timelessness should be maintained by avoiding sudden dynamic changes. The metronome backing track also helps sustain a steady pulse to support the sense of timelessness. To achieve an effect of slow and seamless harmonic progression during the slow-motion section, the performer should produce a steady, well-paced crescendo without any sudden accents. Permutation of S requires awareness of the manipulated

sequence. Once the performer identifies the pitches that are being manipulated and how they are being grouped, he or she can highlight the beginnings of phrases. The psychological montage section, marked by the composer as distant and reflective, should be played with a sound that has not been previously created in the work. The color of the melody could be veiled with the una corda but the melody should still be projected.

Heartbreaker

A deceptively virtuosic work, Heartbreaker (2013) begins simply but “spirals into something that is just within the limits of the pianist’s control.”105 The work was written for the

American Pianists Association’s competition in 2013 and contains virtuosity through its rapid, repeating sixteenths and the need for quick leaps. Mazzoli indicates that a successful performance is not focused on accuracy or speed but aims to strike a “balance between rhythmic precision and the free-wheeling abandon the piece requires.”106

The title of the piece is influenced by the relatable human experience of heartbreak and the accompanied distress. Heartbreak is defined, experienced, and understood in different ways and can be considered complex. Its emotional and physical effects are different within each human being. The complex yet unifying human experience of heartbreak has inspired Mazzoli to write music reflecting the inner discovery and journey of this specific experience.

The beginning of the work introduces two voices, which expand to three and then four voices, and it finishes with two. The voices begin in a low register and travel higher and higher until they settle in the middle register. The repetition of rhythms is transformed through motivic development. Although the piece lacks melodic lines, the rhythm leads the journey. Not only can

105 Mazzoli, Missy. Heartbreaker. New York: G. Schirmer, 2013. 106 Ibid. 43

the title imply a narrative, but the oppositions in musical elements also allow for narrative analysis.

Musical narrative in Heartbreaker is reflected by the elements shown in Table 4. The markedness of pitch direction of the sixteenths, manipulation of rhythms, twentieth-century techniques, and dissonance between voices will assist in finding the work’s plot archetype.

Table 4. Order and Transgressions in Heartbreaker

Order Transgression Static sixteenths on one pitch Rising static sixteenths

Static rhythms Melodic sixteenths

Obfuscation of underlying S Slow-motion time/spatial stratification/trance time Dissonance between voices Consonance between voices

Like the other works, Heartbreaker contains drama driven by the manipulation of rhythm. First appearing in m. 4 (Example 19), the sixteenths in the middle voice begin as static repeating sixteenths on a single pitch. As the sixteenths develop, Mazzoli uses an additive rhythmic technique and the pitches begin rising (Example 20). Throughout the piece the sixteenths continue shifting between static sixteenths and rising sixteenths, reaching up as high as F#5 and at the end on static Bs (Example 21). The rising sixteenths are transgressive and push the static sixteenths away from order until the static sixteenths insist on remaining on B-natural at the end.

Example 19. Opening of Heartbreaker, mm. 1-5.

Example 20. Heartbreaker, rising sixteenths in mm. 9, 14-15.

Example 21. Ending of Heartbreaker, mm. 165-71.

To contrast with the groups of static and rising sixteenths, there are groups of sixteenths that move in a melodic manner (Example 22). After this first disruption, the static sixteenths try to regain order but, instead, melodic sixteenths emerge and develop into a climactic whirlwind, breaking out of the elements that previously established order (Example 23). The melodic rhythms take over for thirty-five measures and then are interrupted by the static rhythms once again. The return of the static rhythms displays the resilience of order.

Example 22. Heartbreaker, mm. 84-87, contrasting melodic sixteenths

Example 23. Heartbreaker, mm.117-122, melodic sixteenths breaking out of the static sixteenths

The variety in and transformation between the twentieth-century techniques supports narrativity in Heartbreaker. Table 5 displays the trajectory of the techniques.

Table 5. Techniques used in Heartbreaker

Measure 1 49 79 93 119 155 Technique Obfuscation of Obfuscation implied Slow-motion Spatial Trance Slow-motion of implied underlying S time stratification time time underlying S

The beginning uses “obfuscation of implied underlying S,” which destroys the sense of an S. A

motive attempts to establish itself in the beginning, but it is interrupted by the sixteenths in the

inner voice (refer to Example 19). The next technique consists of syncopated eighths and

quarters, as if imitating heartbeats (Example 24). Like Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Pianos,

Heartbreaker uses slow-motion time to harmonically progress at a slow pace without

interruption. At m. 93, the three voices each have their own repeating sequence but change at

different rates because they each contain a different number of pitches or harmonies (Example

25). The voices are staggered, which makes it difficult for the listener to immediately identify the

patterns. This technique of spatial stratification contains simultaneous Ss and should be

identified by the performer. Trance time emerges and the sense of time is lost. Slow-motion time

Example 24. Heartbreaker, mm. 45-53, slow-motion time

Example 25. Heartbreaker, mm. 79-78, spatial stratification

(refer to Example 23) interrupts trance time and sustains using the previously mentioned melodic sixteenths. At the end, “obfuscation of implied underlying S” returns. The harmonies stagger between E-flat major, G major, and B major with different groupings of sixteenth-note interruptions. The overall trajectory of techniques reflect symmetry in the work. Obfuscation of the implied underlying S represents order and frames the work. Although the other techniques increased the rank value of transgression, order prevailed.

As in the traditional system of functional harmony in Western classical music, there is dissonance and consonance in Heartbreaker. The opening begins with dissonance created by a G against an A-flat major chord (refer to Example 19) and later the G is played against a G-sharp.

Throughout the piece there is struggle reflected through the dissonance and consonance between the upper, middle, and bass voices. Dissonance in the work is usually found in the minor seconds between the soprano and bass. At the end, the F-sharp against the G major can be heard as either

a G major seventh chord or an unresolved dissonance. Although the lack of dissonance can be viewed positively, in this case it represents transgressive behavior.

The transgressive elements were not strong enough to deter order from returning at the end. All elements of order—the static sixteenths, the obfuscation of S, and dissonance—return at the end after fighting in between moments of transgression. The plot archetype that arises is the tragic plot archetype.

Performance Suggestions

As Mazzoli suggests in her notes, there must be a balance between rhythmic precision and free expression. The oppositions should be performed in ways that are not only indicated by the composer but also in contrasting expressions. The beginning foreshadows events and should be projected even at a pianissimo dynamic. The performer should be aware of the dissonance created between the first two entities. The sixteenths should be played according to their respective dynamic indications: the static sixteenths played at one steady volume and the rising sixteenths with an exaggerated crescendo. In successive rising sixteenths across several measures, the crescendo should be paced evenly, and when the static sixteenth is reached, keep the volume stable.

The intention of specific techniques should be recognized as to highlight the drama. In the opening’s obfuscation of S, each individual voice should have its own sound. The bass should emulate a monotonous slow pulse, the right-hand chord should have a warm sound, and the interrupting sixteenths should sound more pointed or bright. For slow-motion time, the slow harmonic progressions are marked by crescendos, indicating growing tension, but the syncopated eighth and quarter notes should be kept steady to maintain the slow journey rather than pushing

forward. The spatial stratified technique, or the layering of three simultaneous activities, requires awareness to phrase each voice according to its motive. After the spatial stratified technique, the return of static sixteenths can be played steadily if the performer wants to portray the static nature of an individual pitch repeating. The return of rising sixteenths can be slightly pushed or compressed to indicate transgression. The climactic trance time that also contains the melodic sixteenths should be approached with vigor and exuberance. Allow the damper pedal to collect each measure’s sound, but clear when the bass changes. The concluding obfuscation of S should maintain the different layers of sounds while calming down at an even pace to conclude the tragic plot archetype and the defeat of positively viewed transgression.

CONCLUSION

Missy Mazzoli’s fascination with human beings, the nature of relationships, communication, and other aspects of the human experience has driven her music. Mazzoli’s urge to tell stories and inspire people to listen and feel deeply is represented through her works. Her residencies and increasingly popularity are evidence of this. Building upon the influence of her teachers and other composers, Mazzoli has crafted a unique sound and approach that combines minimalist techniques, which are usually considered to be non-narrative, with other techniques and style characteristics, including rhythmic manipulation, harmonic dissonance and consonance, lyricism, electronic sources, and temporality-related twentieth-century techniques to infuse her music with dramatic elements and extramusical significance.

Although Almén’s theory of musical narrativity is usually applied to pre-twentieth- century music, Mazzoli’s music contains gestures and oppositions that allow for this method of narrative analysis. While the plot archetypes demonstrated in Mazzoli’s solo piano works are not programmatic, the trajectory of events can help guide performers’ interpretations and approaches to specific soundscapes or characteristics in the music.

The average listener is not often exposed to contemporary classical music. This is not only due to the lack of accessibility to new music concerts, but also due to the lack of understanding new music. If performers are clear with their musical intentions, listeners can find something familiar to hold on to and to guide their experience of the music. Teachers can coach students to find oppositions and gestures in new music to help organize ideas and make sense of the unconventional musical notation. Even though this treatise only deals with Mazzoli’s works, this method can inspire different ways of looking at music whether or not a performer wants to find narrativity in the music.

APPENDIX A ALMÉN AND HATTEN’S OUTLINE OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY TECHNIQUES AND AESTHETICS WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR NARRATIVE INTERPRETATION107

I. Temporality A. Permutation of stylistically constrained sequences (S) 1. Preservation of implied underlying S 2. Obfuscation of implied underlying S 3. Ellipsis: leaving out portions of S B. Montage effects 1. Disruption/interruption 2. Stratification a. Spatial b. Actorial 3. Psychological montage 4. Surreal montage C. Dissolution of temporality (lack of clear S) 1. Suspended time 2. Cyclical time 3. Symmetrical or mirrored time 4. Moment time 5. Trance time 6. Numinous time 7. Slow-motion time 8. Foregrounding a parameter not associated with time 9. Defaulting to gesture or global temporal reference D. Ignoring or rejecting temporality and stylistically constrained sequences 1. Zero-degree time (absence of temporal situatedness) 2. Intentional negation of time II. Tropological Narratives III. Agential Narratives A. Ambiguous subject B. Reordering of events involving a subject C. Displaced subject D. Other kinds of problematized subjectivity E. Narrative agency (as staged by the work) IV. Myth A. As supporting to narrative interpretation B. As antithetical to narrative interpretation V. Ideological and Cognitive Constructions A. Alternative ideologies 1. Zero-degree narrative 2. Anti-narrative B. Cognitive construction of narratives

107 Almén and Hatten, 64. 52

APPENDIX B

NARRATIVE ARCHETYPES: TRANSVALUATION PROFILES108

108 Joseph Kraus, “Almén’s Four Narrative Archetypes” (class lecture, Special Topics: Musical Meaning and Performance, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, 2016) 53

APPENDIX C COPYRIGHT CREDITS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Almén, Byron. A Theory of Musical Narrative. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.

Almén, Byron, and Edward Pearsall. Approaches to Meaning in Music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.

Blake, Kara. “The Delian Mode - Delia Derbyshire Documentary.” 2009. YouTube video, 25:10, May 5, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXnmSgaeGAI.

Butler, David. “Delia Derbyshire.” BBC. Accessed January 15, 2020. https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/100-voices/pioneering-women/women-of-the- workshop/delia-derbyshire.

Garman, Emma. “Feminize Your Canon: Isabelle Eberhardt.” The Paris Review, February 11, 2019. Accessed February 19, 2020. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/02/11/ feminize-your-canon-isabelle-eberhardt/.

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Klein, Michael Leslie, and Nicholas Reyland. Music and Narrative Since 1900. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.

Mazzoli, Missy. “Missy Mazzoli ‘Orizzonte’ LPR Lisa Moore Piano.” YouTube video, 7:14, March 11, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pnBt-NtgEc.

Molleson, Kate. “Missy Mazzoli: ‘Breaking the Waves Deals with Big Ideas. Opera Is a Place for Big Ideas.’” The Guardian, August 16, 2019. Accessed January 19, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/aug/16/missy-mazzoli-breaking-the-waves- deals-with-big-ideas-opera-is-a-place-for-big-ideas.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Christina Lai, from Plantation, Florida, began her musical training at the age of five. She was one of four chosen as a William R. Kenan Jr. Music Scholar at the University of North

Carolina at Chapel Hill and graduated with a Bachelor’s of Music and a Chemistry minor.

Among several achievements, Christina debuted with the UNC Symphony Orchestra performing Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. She has attended and performed at the

Chautauqua Institution and at the Aspen Music Festival and School as a Thomas S. Kenan

Fellow. She has won prizes in various competitions including the Florida State University

Chapman/Neesen Competition, National Association of Negro Musicians Piano Competition,

Florida MTNA Young Artist Competition, Rosen-Schaffel Competition, and Young Artists

Piano Competition of the North Carolina Music Teachers Association. Christina was one of nine national recipients of the Chopin Foundation of the United States scholarship awards and was chosen to receive the Marilyn Caldwell Piano Solo Award from the National Federation of

Music Clubs. Additionally, she has received guidance from artists such as Richard Goode, Nelita

True, John Perry, Boris Slutsky, Natalya Antonova, Phillipe Entremont, Ian Hobson, Alexander

Gavrylyuk, Winston Choi, and Daniel Shapiro.

Complementing her musical ventures, Christina was an avid volunteer in the music therapy department of the North Carolina Memorial Hospital. She also enjoys teaching and has taught private lessons and group piano at FSU, was on the piano faculty at Good Sam Arts, an instructor for UNC’s Musical Empowerment (a non-profit organization designed to provide free lessons to underprivileged children), and an instructor of the Aspen Music Festival and School’s

Passes and Lessons Scholarship Program. Her students have received scholarships and have been accepted into collegiate-level piano programs.

Christina’s chamber experience includes performing as part of piano duos and piano trios. As a part of Trio Azul, she engaged with the community through collaboration with the

Leon County Library and Pulitzer Prize winner Ellen Zwilich, working with Zwilich and performing her piano trio. As a part of Eirene Duo, Christina presented a lecture on and performed Chen Yi’s China West Suite at the University of Florida. With Trio Nobile, she performed across the state of Florida and in Italy. The trio was selected to represent Florida State

University in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall in 2020.She received her Doctorate of Music in piano performance with a specialized study in piano pedagogy under the guidance of Professors Read

Gainsford and Diana Dumlavwalla. Visit her YouTube channel for recordings of Missy

Mazzoli’s piano pieces mentioned in this treatise.