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  Eternally Young and Full of Greatness: Mozart

  Alyssa Agro

  Alyssa Agro, MUS 303: Music History 2
  Faculty Mentor: Professor Carolyn Guzski, Music

  
  After the Baroque Era concluded with the death of Bach in 1750, three central composers influenced the musical world: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Franz Joseph Haydn. These composers became known as the First Vienna School. As a member of this School, Mozart mastered many genres of music, particularly the instrumental sonata. Mozart’s Piano Sonata in C Major, K. 545 (1781) represents the apex of the Classical Era and style. One can see that to compose and perform this piece took great skill. This masterpiece of absolute music--instrumental music that is not intended to be depictive--embodies Mozart’s musical genius. I demonstrate how Mozart’s use of musical elements such as melody and melodic ornamentation throughout this piece contributes to the structure of classical sonata form. Mozart was able to create this piece with great speed and accuracy, possibly a product of the comprehensive educational background he obtained in childhood. With help from his father, Mozart received the opportunity to study many past composers. In K. 545, the application of compositional techniques Mozart had acquired are seen directly in the musical score itself. My analysis reveals similarities among rhythms and melodic motives throughout each movement of the sonata. Mozart took the simplest of ideas and turned them into an enduring masterpiece, one that remains frequently performed to the present day.

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  Claude Debussy: The Truth About the Première Rhapsodie

  Felicity Barnes

  Felicity Barnes, MUS 303: Music History 2
  Faculty Mentor: Professor Carolyn Guzski, Music

  
  Claude Debussy (1862-1918) composed one of the most famous pieces in the solo clarinet repertoire, the Première Rhapsodie [First Rhapsody]. One of the two pieces he wrote for this instrument, the Rhapsodie was commissioned by the Paris Conservatoire for its annual clarinet exam. As a “Solo de Concours,” the music is intended to showcase the entirety of the clarinet’s technical and artistic capabilities. As a practicing clarinetist, I focus on the technical aspects of this piece, as it contains many difficulties for the advanced player. It is a test of endurance, range, and breath support that requires a professional level of performance technique. Through listening to and performing the piece while analyzing its musical score, I have gained a better understanding of why Debussy’s Première Rhapsodie is not only a technical challenge useful for pre-professional assessment. It remains popular due to its artistic excellence and has endured as a central work in the woodwind repertoire.

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  Brahms: A Pious Mourner

  Mason Battle

  Mason Battle, MUS 303: Music History 2
  Faculty Mentor: Professor Carolyn Guzski, Music

  
  Johannes Brahms’s (1833-1897) Ein Deutsches Requiem [A German Requiem], op. 45 (1868) is his longest composition and a major musical work of the Romantic era. The Requiem (“Mass for the Dead” in Roman Catholic tradition) unfolds in seven movements scored for mixed chorus, orchestra, and soprano and baritone vocal soloists. This highly expressive work was written in a state of deep mourning, as Brahms began to create it in the year of his beloved mother’s death. Brahms may also have been inspired by lingering melancholy over the tragic premature death of his colleague and champion Robert Schumann in 1856. Brahms’s devotion to a religious work even during this extended mourning period may come as a surprise, given the modernist interpretation of Arnold Schoenberg’s widely-read “Brahms the Progressive.” Schoenberg’s article, which painted Brahms as an agnostic progressive, carried on this idea for years after its publication. But this may not be the full story. As Brahms was a native of Hamburg, a city with a significant Protestant heritage, one may rightly assume that he was greatly exposed to German Lutheran traditions. After analyzing the Requiem in detail, I conclude that it is safe to say Brahms was a pious man. Brahms uses exclusively text from the Lutheran Bible that is commonly interpreted as a Requiem for the living, as opposed to the focus on the afterlife of the Catholic Requiem. Though the Lutheran sacred vernacular differs immensely from the original ecclesiastical Latin source, Brahms still invokes a strongly Christian essence in his music without ever bringing the name of Jesus, or even God, into the text of the work. In mourning his mother, Brahms immersed himself in his art and naturally turned in Ein Deutsches Requiem to the comforts of faith.

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  Franz Schubert and His Final Song Cycle Journey

  Mackenna Beattie

  Mackenna Beattie, MUS 303: Music History 2
  Faculty Mentor: Professor Carolyn Guzski, Music

  
  My project focuses on Franz Peter Schubert and his final song cycle, Der Winterreise [Winter Journey], which was composed and published shortly before his passing. I analyze three specific Lieder, or individual songs for voice and piano, from the twenty-four that make up this celebrated Liederkreis [song cycle]: “Gute Nacht [Good Night]”, “Einsamkeit [Loneliness]," and “Der Leiermann [The Hurdy-Gurdy Man].” The musical concept for “Gute Nacht [Good Night]” is expressed through modal shifts that occur in the melody throughout the song. In “Der Leiermann [The Hurdy-Gurdy Man]” I focus on the specific instrument Schubert evokes: the hurdy-gurdy, which is used as a drone sounded by the piano as the singer expresses despair amidst his slowly deteriorating mental state. I use examples from the musical score to show specific musical events during the course of the song cycle, along with background biographical knowledge on Schubert himself and details of his compositional technique. My project goal is to communicate a sense of how and why Schubert composed in the Lieder genre so prolifically and masterfully, through a better understanding of specific examples within his final song cycle.

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  The Makeup Design Process

  Sydney Bouthsavong

  Sydney Bouthsavong, ALT 490: Senior Seminar
  Faculty Mentors: Professor Joy Guarino, Theater and Professor Ann Emo, Theater

  
  The purpose of theatrical makeup is to accentuate the actor's appearance and enhance the role of a character. Makeup can be one of the most essential devices in a production. It assists with indicating a situation and furthering the narrative of the story by adding detail and personality, which is crucial to storytelling. My research documented the process and steps that are necessary for a makeup artist to follow in order to create and design for theater and film productions. The purpose of the project is to guide future designers with finding their process and also to educate them on their role as part of a design team. My poster discusses the process of becoming a makeup designer and explains the standards in the industry. Because the makeup artist is part of a collaborative team, the project also documents the importance and value of clear communication within the group of people working together in order to tell the story and how the makeup artist executes their role within the plan to achieve a particular end result. The team effort includes researching the materials needed, going to meetings, communicating individual process of design, understanding the relationship between a director and several designers, previewing, and executing and finalizing a design. I interviewed other creative artists involved in this process to provide another perspective on the design process, offer a different view on the levels of collaboration with a team, and evaluate the impact on the final makeup design. The poster summarizes each step of my makeup design process and also includes photos from past performances to provide a visual aid and enhance the understanding of the step by step process.

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  Improving Bowl Woodturning Skills and Experimenting with Bountiful Bowls

  John A. Burek

  John A. Burek, Metals/Jewelry
  Faculty Mentor: Professor Sunhwa Kim, Art and Design

  
  I present a slideshow of the original artwork and skills I learned at the John C. Campbell Folk School, which will include the new items I have created since my training. The purpose of this arts training was to improve the skills required for woodturning on a lathe and, more specifically, the skills required for turning bowls. These skills precede the expertise required for turning hollow-form vessels and original artwork pieces. This training also allowed me to return to Buffalo State with the skills required to teach woodturning to other students in the wood furniture program.

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  The Street Life of Trees: An Urban Guide

  Jaclyn Chuchanis

  Jackie Chuchanis, DES 495: Total Design-Urban Tree Guide
  Faculty Mentors: Professor Carol Townsend, Art & Design, Professor Robert J. Warren, Biology and Dr. Susan McCartney, Small Business Development Center

  
  The main objective of this project is to enhance awareness of urban ecology in our region. To this end, I am working with a highly qualified team, ensuring the project’s integrity. My part in this collaborative real-world experience began with a request for illustrating and designing a publication for Buffalo State’s Maude Gordon Holmes Arboretum. There are thirty illustrations for which initial research was done in the Eckert Herbarium. I made sketches from specimens of the various shrubs and trees showcasing their identifying features. Additionally, I photographed on-site. These photographs and sketches were brought into Adobe Photoshop along with color toning. After adding color and contrast, I added filters to abstract the image. Then, I colorized each even more. I also was tasked with creating a graph for their ecological impact. The result will be a professionally printed fifty-six page bound book, for which I design the pre-publication layout.

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  East Meets West: Exoticism in Puccini's Madama Butterfly

  Alison Cleary

  Alison Cleary, MUS 303: Music History 2
  Faculty Mentor: Professor Carolyn Guzski, Music

  
  My project focuses on Italian composer Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) and his famous opera Madama Butterfly. The opera embodies the concept of exoticism, particularly in its depiction of Japanese culture. I analyze selections from Madama Butterfly in order to reveal its composer’s efforts to transmit a sense of Asian-influenced stylistic features. To do so, I examine the opera’s melodies, harmonies, and orchestration, and show harmonic and melodic themes that reference Japanese cultural influences with examples from the opera’s musical score. In addition, I look more deeply into the concept of artistic exoticism as viewed by cultural scholars. I shall compare and connect the exoticism of Butterfly to other works of Puccini, as well as to those of previous composers in music history. Finally, I discuss the composer’s background through biographical sources, including his nineteenth-century musical influences and the era's fascination with the "exotic" in art. I will explain what originally inspired Puccini to adapt the Madama Butterfly story for the lyric stage, as well as the impact the opera had after its premiere and beyond.

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  Art of the New Russia: Contemporary Art in St. Petersburg

  Lauren Cox

  Lauren Cox, Graphic Design
  Faculty Mentor: Professor Yola Monakhov Stockton, Art & Design

  
  This research project is a study of contemporary Russian art and its relation to the social and political climate in which it exists. Art in Russia before and after Soviet times was largely created either for or against the government. The avant-garde artists and performers of the early twentieth century sought to make work that was experimental and non-conformist, while many Constructivist artists made work in support of the post-revolutionary government. Starting in the 1930s, Socialist Realism put tight restrictions on artists and only work glorifying the state was allowed. The past century of Russian history has created a culture that draws from the lavishness of the Tsars, the revolutionary spirit of the Bolsheviks, the oppressive nature of Stalinism, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the rapid catch-up to the rest of the twentieth-century developed world. The goal of this research was to answer the question of how the political and social climate in post-Soviet Russia influences the content and form of work being produced, and to analyze how artists are responding to themes such as nationalism and human rights. Research was collected through interviewing contemporary artists in St. Petersburg who are creating work that is directly related to their social and political surroundings.

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  Discovering Home: Stories of Asylum

  Aaron Davis

  Aaron Davis, Theater
  Faculty Mentor: Visiting Professor Naila H. Ansari, Theater/Dance

  
  I look to tell stories through movement of people discovering “home”: what people think of home and how they feel when they are home. I investigate how space and location can expand my movement knowledge and the ways space is in constant change. I have had the opportunity to explore migration and the concept of home with my work with Jericho Road Vive Shelter through the Dance program at Buffalo State. Vive is a "...shelter (located in Buffalo, NY) that houses refugee claimants waiting for appointments/interviews with the Canadian Border Services Agency and asylees hoping to apply for U.S. asylum." I am working as an assistant dance director for their annual gala. With help from my mentor and gala choreographer Naila Ansari, I have assisted in producing a dance work telling stories of refugees in search of home.

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  Saint-Saëns: Four Movements, Four Emotions

  Julianna Ellis

  Julianna Ellis, MUS 303: Music History 2
  Faculty Mentor: Professor Carolyn Guzski, Music

  
  Although French composer Camille Saint-Saëns (1832-1921) is not among the most famous musicians of the Romantic era, he is still one of the great composers of the nineteenth century. My project covers one of his lesser known pieces, the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano in E-flat major, op. 167 (1921). This four-movement piece for solo clarinet respects the traditional multi-movement Classical form associated with the genre. The first movement is an Allegretto; movement two is a minuet inspired by French Baroque dance; movement three is a slow Lento; and the final movement is a characteristically lively Molto allegro. The Sonata's opening theme comes full circle with its repetition at the conclusion of the fourth movement, making the piece cyclic. This concept was pioneered by another French Romantic composer, Hector Berlioz, in his Symphonie fantastique (1830). Through biographical and score studies, I examine Saint-Saëns’ stylistic and cyclic influences in the Clarinet Sonata, such as rhythmic motifs that are heard throughout the piece and unite its musical movements.

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  Mahler and the Fine Line of Tonality

  Cassidy Faddis

  Cassidy Faddis, MUS 303: Music History 2
  Faculty Mentor: Professor Carolyn Guzski, Music

  
  Gustav Mahler’s (1860-1911) famously unfinished Symphony No. 10 (1910) begins with an Adagio, which is unique. But it is also intentional, deliberately creating a meaningful association with his Symphony no. 9, which concludes with an Adagio movement. The Tenth Symphony includes an opening Andante-adagio, followed by a Scherzo, "Purgatorio," a second Scherzo, and concluding Finale. I analyze the soaring viola solo that opens the Tenth Symphony’s Adagio with a strongly yearning mood that comes full circle in the concluding Finale. The main theme and its contrapuntal echoes in the Adagio are led by this reflective viola solo, which is transformed in various guises throughout the movement, a technique also seen in the finale of Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 and in Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. Mahler builds his ideas to a cataclysmic climax, defined by a harmonically dense nine-note chord whose suddenness shatters the strength of the previous music that now fades into silence. Throughout my project, I explore the harmonic line that Mahler teeters between–tonality and atonality–as he opens a door towards twentieth-century Modernism, where his protégé Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) had already created a pathway. I use primary source letters, as well as historical and biographical studies, to show how Gustav Mahler’s use of compositional techniques (such as symphonic orchestration) conveyed an aural idea of tonal ambiguity that mirrors aspects of his life and imminent death during the creation of the Tenth Symphony.

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  Revealing Bolero: A Look into the Psyche of Maurice Ravel

  Elsie M. Herold

  Elsie M. Herold, MUS 303: Music History 2
  Faculty Mentor: Professor Carolyn Guzski, Music

  
  My research offers a psychoanalytical perspective on the twentieth-century French composer Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) through his most popular work, Bolero (1928). Many questions have arisen over the years concerning Ravel’s mental health. Ravel became chronically ill in midlife, suffering from memory loss and repeatedly isolating himself from society. Though no posthumous diagnosis can be certain, many neurologists agree that Ravel suffered from primary aphasia, a loss of language ability—and possibly musical comprehension—due to brain damage resulting from his time serving in WWI. Ravel composed Bolero in this increasingly unstable psychological state. The orchestral work is famous for its use of a rhythmic ostinato sounded in snare drum and equally mesmerizing repetitive melody. Listeners nearly fall into insanity themselves after hearing this sixteen-minute cyclical monster! This project attempts to synthesize the work of neurologists, biographical accounts from Ravel’s life, and his own compositions to argue that Bolero’s hypnotic artistic effect resulted from Ravel’s primary aphasia.

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  Orchestrated by Dante

  Harold Jacob

  Harold Jacob, MUS 303: Music History 2
  Faculty Mentor: Professor Carolyn Guzski, Music

  
  Robert W. Smith's (1958) First Symphony, The Divine Comedy (1995), was based on Dante Alighieri's trecento literary masterpiece. First published in 1472, La divina commedia is now a staple of Italian Renaissance literature still influential among artists and writers today. Dante has previously served as an artistic catalyst for many creative individuals. Adaptations of the Divine Comedy have appeared in previous symphonies, film, and most recently in a videogame and an animated epic. Robert W. Smith is one of the very few musicians who has composed a symphony based on all constituent sections of the Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, The Ascension, and Paradiso. Each musical movement has distinct characteristics that aurally depict what Dante imagined witnessing and experiencing as he traversed through the Afterlife. La divina commedia was for Dante more than just theology--it is the author's own story in which he is the protagonist, with themes that relate to his personal life and relationship to the Roman Catholic Church and politics of his native Florence. My project seeks to explain how Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy has found continued relevance in Smith's Symphony, through the composer's musical interpretation of a great literary work.

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  Exploring the Impact of Art-Making on Mood: Painting as Mood Booster for Individuals with Developmental Disabilities

  Thomas Riley

  Riley Thomas, HON 400: All College Honors Colloquium
  Faculty Mentor: Professor Rachel Sikorski, Art and Design

  
  Creating art appears to impact the mood of individuals with developmental disabilities. The goal for this research project was to see if this impact has a positive or negative effect on the mood. Participants include both men and women, whose ages range from 18-73 years old, with varying degrees of impairment associated with a developmental disability. For example, some are verbal and some are nonverbal. Each individual was given their own set of acrylic paint, along with a variety of paintbrushes and paper, to complete an art activity on their own in thirty minutes in any way they saw fit. Using a picture scale with faces that depict various emotions--happy, sad, angry, excited, neutral, and confused—each individual was asked how they felt before the activity, during the activity (15 minutes), and after the activity was completed. The responses to the picture scale determine if and how the individual’s mood may have been impacted by the art activity. The results may not be consistent, since each individual has their own wants and needs; and what may be a positive experience for one might be neutral or negative for another. For the men and women who do find this painting activity as a mood booster, hopefully they may be able to incorporate this creative activity into their lives as a coping resource when needed.

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  Storytime: A Solo Exhibition

  Emma Roberts

  Emma Roberts, DES 414: Senior Seminar/Exhibition
  Faculty Mentor: Professor Stan Friesen, Art & Design

  
  Like most children, I had a vivid imagination growing up. I was constantly drawing and creating worlds, characters, and playing make-believe. I remember hearing Harold and the Purple Crayon, Dr. Seuss, and Where the Wild Things Are read to me as a child and being engrossed by the worlds the authors created. As I became older, I read more and more, but also found myself paying attention to the visuals. I was drawn to graphic novels and followed a vast array of illustrators online. I have been most inspired by illustrators Andy Ristaino and Lois Hannah, who have created beautiful, extensive worlds and characters. Their work has shown me how illustration can make the reader feel like part of a character’s life and what it’s like to share a world with them. To this day, whenever I read a book or view an illustrator’s work, I am fascinated by what they bring to the page; each one giving life to unique characters, settings, and storylines. And with that, I invite you to be drawn into a world that I have created and take part in the story before you.

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  Marta Minujín: From the Sixties to the Twenty-First Century

  Szenina Russo

  Szenina Russo, FAR 471: Senior Seminar in Art History
  Faculty Mentor: Professor Harriet Blitzer, Art & Design

  
  The inspiration for my project started when I personally experienced the exhibit Menesunda while visiting the New Museum in New York. This was Marta Minujin’s installation on display in 2019, a re-creation from the installation of the 1960s. From this I developed an interest in researching Marta Minujín’s destruction of her own artistic work, and the subsequent re-creation, through the extensive use of secondary sources. Minujin's installations, videos, sculptures and happenings are meant to be experienced. Every artwork that Minujín has created has been based on issues in society, contemporary theories, or the lives of talented, intelligent individuals. Minujín befriended Andy Warhol when she began to spend years at a time in New York, and the artists influenced each other’s creative processes. Others who had a great impact on her life and art were the artists Alberto Greco, Jean Tinguely, Christo, Robert Rauschenberg and the philosopher Marshall McLuhan. Minujin as an artist is most interested in making others feel alive, understand what is going on in the world, and focus their attention toward positive or negative images in life. Marta Minujín is an artist who has not conveyed messages through traditional fine art. Her philosophy depends on the participation and involvement of the public. This affects the way that she creates, destroys and recreates her artistic projects.

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  Program v. Absolute: Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata

  Molly Secord

  Molly Secord, MUS 303: Music History 2
  Faculty Mentor: Professor Carolyn Guzski, Music

  
  My project explores the opening movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s (1770-1827) Piano Sonata in C-sharp minor, op. 27, no. 2 (1801), more famously known as his “Moonlight” Sonata. The research focus is an exploration of interpretative differences between “absolute” and “program” music, reinforced by my own primary score analysis. My discussion compares the rhythmic ostinato used by Beethoven with Mozart’s strikingly similar figure in “Ah! Soccorso” (Act I) from the opera Don Giovanni (1787). Beethoven named his work “Sonata quasi una Fantasia,” which translates to “Sonata in a manner of a fantasy.” That piece of information leads us to believe that the pathbreaking composer was referring to the freedom of form beginning to emerge in absolute musical genres at the inception of the Romantic era. I also use historical and theoretical sources to further my project goal: contributing to an understanding of the possibilities of absolute music, and Beethoven’s transformative power, at the end of the Classical era through his most influential and frequently performed piano work.

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  Brayden Talks About Her Feelings

  Lelia Spencer and Kent Botia

  Lelia Spencer and Kent Botia, COM 495: Short Narrative Film Producing
  Faculty Mentor: Professor Meg Knowles, Communication

  
  Brayden Talks About Her Feelings is a 15-minute narrative film focused on Brayden, a college dance student struggling to come to terms with her previous romantic relationships. Research included a study of major films in the genre, resulting in an original script. The film was produced, shot and completed in the course of one semester. The film is inspired by and adopts the style of the “Mumblecore” film genre, popularized starting around 2005 by directors Andrew Bujalski (Hannah Takes the Stairs, 2007) and the Duplasse brothers (The Puffy Chair, 2005). In the Mumblecore tradition, this film is produced with available resources during the pandemic, including post-production on available editing systems. Mumblecore methods and aesthetics, identified by film scholars Stefan Popescu and Amy Taubin, include low budget, DIY productions with understated direction of dialogue intensive scripts about daily life. Mumblecore cinematography utilizes natural lighting and realistic location sets. The genre allows for improvisation, with a heavy focus on the relationships between the characters, who are most often disaffected youth recently graduated from college and trying to make their way in the world. The film emphasizes realism, conveying this stylistic choice through natural lighting and coloring and minimal dialogue to draw attention to the inner life of the characters. Brayden captures realistic conflicts and interactions that speak to a target audience of college-age millennial viewers who identify with scenarios reflecting their everyday lives.

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  Danzón: Afro-Cubanism Meets Mexico

  Yamilla Tate

  Yamilla Tate, MUS 303: Music History 2
  Faculty Mentor: Professor Carolyn Guzski, Music

  
  The world of symphonic performance is arguably Eurocentric: dominated by European composers and genres, and leaving very little room for the appreciation of North American and Latin American orchestral works. Latin America is rich in its musical culture, due to its variety of national and regional cultures that offer a wide array of artistic perspectives and unique expressive capabilities from a multitude of ethnic groups. My presentation will look at Mexican composer Arturo Marquez’s Danzón No. 2, a highly evocative piece which I feel epitomizes the sound of Latin America and showcases the particular contributions of Afro-Latinos in Latin culture. The composition is rich in Latin rhythms, forceful brass writing, and inspiring string melodies, all common traits of the traditional Cuban danzón. I analyze the course of Marquez’s Danzón throughout Latin American history and the roles it has occupied within the burgeoning Afro-Cuban culture of the nineteenth century. Alongside these aspects, I consider the composer’s own views of the genre, using contemporary commentary that gives a sense of how it reached Mexico. My goal is to engage listeners in Latin America’s diverse musical culture, perhaps becoming more open-minded to orchestral works that break with European tradition. I hope that people may also come to appreciate the vital role Afro-Latino culture has played in the artistic development of Latin America as a global force.