The Influence of Billie Holiday and Black Vocal Music on Selected Operatic Works by Anthony Davis, Terence Blanchard, and Marcus Norris

In my monograph I codify musical characteristics that have defined twentieth-century Black American popular vocal music to illustrate the cross-genre influence this music has on living American opera composers, including Anthony Davis, Terrance Blanchard, and myself. To define these musical characteristics, I analyze compositions and recordings from twentieth-century Black American singer Billie Holiday, who has shaped the genres she performs, with a focus on both songwriting and vocal performance. My dissertation composition, a one-act opera titled Ain’t That About A-, incorporates my findings and extends them in an innovative way: I musically represent “code-switching,” the practice of Black Americans to alternate between dialects in response to the demands of white culture. The story of the opera follows the locals of a Black neighborhood on the cusp of gentrification. We look at what happens when well-intentioned young white people move into the neighborhood, looking to save a community of people who do not feel they need to be saved