Thesis:

Choral Music and the Plucked String

Abstract: This thesis examines various settings of music composed for the choral ensemble accompanied by plucked stringed instruments. The past five years has brought a new interest in choral music accompanied by pluck string instruments as demonstrated by the repertoire choices of master chorales. The increasing awareness of world music and cultural diversity necessitates a fresh look into instrumental accompaniment; however, such existing choral repertoire remains largely underperformed, and the associated research, neglected. The motivation for this thesis is to guide choral conductors through: (1) different plucked-string instruments that date back to the sixteenth-century Italian madrigal and span into twenty-first-century world music, (2) relevant biographical and theoretical research on these composers and their compositions, and (3) the practical demands of performing such repertoire.