“Emily Dickinson: The poet’s voice as expressed through music” a pedagogical performance analysis of selected Dickinson poetry in solo and choral literature, with emphasis on expression and meaning throughout the rehearsal process

Vocal music is unique to other forms of music because of the inclusion of text. Words allow a performer to directly express thoughts, a story, or an emotion to an audience. Composers throughout history have taken famous texts as set them to music. This particular project explored the work of Emily Dickinson, one of Americans most prolific poets, in both choral and solo vocal literature. The culmination of this project was a lecture recital. This paper is a written documentation and exploration of the research, preparation, and execution of the recital. In it contain lesson plans, score analyses, the recital slides, script, and program, discussions of the research that was compiled, and reflections on the rehearsal process. The emergent theme centers on creating meaning through exploring the composer’s intentions, the poet’s intentions, and the personal meaning created by the performers