Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Music

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

This document is in two parts. The first examines selected works of Latin-American composers Tania León and Roberto Sierra. Both composers cite their cultural background as a force that shapes their artistic expression. Many of their works are titled in Spanish, with compositions referencing their homelands in subject and narrative, and incorporate the autochthonous music(s) of Cuba and Puerto Rico. Elements of these afrodiasporic musical traditions can be found in their works: Alegre, Batá, Stride, (León), Loiza, and Concerto for Viola (Sierra), each examined here.

Autochthonous musical elements are highlighted in score excerpts and described using the language and nomenclature typical of their genres. Through examining each composer's work, I hope to illustrate how those cultural elements are developed beyond their idiomatic settings and incorporated in the construction of a large-scale contemporary music composition reflecting their personal expression and unique stylistic paths.

The second part presents some research into bomba, an autochthonous music of Puerto Rico. Interviews, articles and recordings are cited as sources for information about this genre’s history, development and modern practice. Bomba was first observed as a practice in Black communities in Puerto Rico in 1797 and has parallel music traditions in other colonized areas throughout the Caribbean and New Orleans.1 Bomba maintained relevance as a folk and popular music in Puerto Rico throughout the early twentieth century until it was replaced in popular music by salsa and the “Cubanization” of other Latin American music styles.2

Materials studied in this research process are incorporated into the writing of a new musical work, Bámbulas. This original composition incorporates both musical and soundscape elements of Puerto Rican bomba reinterpreted by a non-standard ensemble. The intent of this composition is to make use of some of bomba’s idiomatic elements and develop those materials over the course of a long-form composition, evoking bomba’s cultural setting and creating an expression of the life that encircles the music.

1Reinaldo L. Roman, “Scandalous Race: Garveyism, the Bomba, and the Discourse of Blackness in 1920s Puerto Rico.” Caribbean Studies 31, no. 1 (2003): 246,247. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25613394.

2Peter Manuel, “Puerto Rican Music and Cultural Identity: Creative Appropriation of Cuban Sources from Danza to Salsa.” Ethnomusicology 38, no. 2 (1994): 259. https://doi.org/10.2307/851740.

Date

4-20-2025

Committee Chair

Mara Gibson

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