A Pedagogy for Conducting Vernacular Music of Spanish Latin America

Spanish Latin American musics emerged through multiple heritages and influences present among the countries, with variations based on local conditions. Although performances of Latin American choral music in North America have increased over the past years, generally these performances have a tendency to flatten the richness of the musics, ignoring the wide variety of practices across the continent. Additionally, there is a lack of written sources for choral conductors about Latin American vernacular genres, since those were generally transmitted through oral tradition. Therefore, the goal of this dissertation is to provide pedagogical suggestions based on reliable audio versions of various Latin American vernacular genres, to assist conductors and teachers in the creation of appropriate interpretations. This study is organized in three stages, thus providing a model for Latin American repertoire studies: Historical Context, Aural Analysis and Interpretative Analysis. These three stages acknowledge the musics' primary musical influences, compare vocal techniques and instrumentation of the studied audio versions, and connect those to a score through an interpretative analysis. Throughout this dissertation, readers will find pedagogical approaches to interpret Spanish Latin American vernacular genres, using tools that are accessible in North America. Various tables summarize the conclusions drawn from this study.D.M.A