Hâfez and Betinis: a Conductor’S Approach to Ancient Persian Poetry As Voiced by a Twenty-First Century, Western Composer
HÂFEZ AND BETINIS: A CONDUCTOR’S APPROACH TO ANCIENT PERSIAN POETRY AS VOICED BY A TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, WESTERN COMPOSER Peter C. Steenblik, B.M., M.M. Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS December 2015 APPROVED: Dr. Jerry McCoy, Major Professor and Director of Choral Studies Dr. Stephen Austin, Committee Member and Director of Vocal Studies Dr. Richard Sparks, Committee Member and Chair of the Division of Conducting and Ensembles Dr. Benjamin Brand, Director of Graduate Studies, College of Music Dr. John C. Scott, Dean of the College of Music Dr. Costas Tsatsoulis, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Steenblik, Peter C. Hâfez and Betinis: A Conductor’s Approach to Ancient Persian Poetry as Voiced by a Twenty-First Century, Western Composer. Doctor of Musical Arts (Performance), December 2015, 91 pp., 1 table, 20 illustrations, bibliography, 67 titles. The choral music of Abbie Betinis is being widely performed and commissioned by prominent high school, university, and civic choruses. This study examines From Behind the Caravan: Songs of Hâfez, a five-movement work by Betinis for women’s chorus, vielle, oud, and Persian percussion. Four ghazals by Hâfez of Shiraz, a fourteenth century Sufi poet, are used as the text for Betinis’s Caravan. When considering a performance of this work, a conductor must understand proper treatment of the text, available translation options, Hâfez’s vast world of imagery, vocal demands inherent to the work, alternate instrumentations available and the benefits of each, how to approach improvisatory passages, how to engage heterophonic elements, and how to prepare a Western choir and audience with very little to no understanding of the philosophies of Sufism that heavily influence the work.
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