Concentration(s):
Music | Classics
Music Capstone Project:
Founding Carthage
Founding Carthage is a collection of musical theater-style songs for voice and piano. The music is themed after the tale of Dido, the mythical founder of Carthage, with details drawn from Vergil, Ovid, and other ancient authors, but written with the intention of re-centering Dido in the story of her life and humanizing the actors in her myth. There are five songs total, three solos and two duets, written for a total of five singers and one pianist. The first song is a jazz-inspired piece meant to complicate the idea that Pygmalion was a heartless killer. The second song, a duet between the murdered Sychaeus and his widow Dido, is more somber but still draws from jazz theory for chromatics. The third song, Aeneas’ lament, discusses Aeneas’s trauma after the Trojan war and uses a dark tango rhythm, and the fourth song, a duet in G major between Anna and Aeneas, uses simple rhythms and tonal harmonies to emphasize the happiness of the characters singing. Dido sings the final song, Founding Carthage, which travels through several styles and quote previous pieces. The advisor for this project was Prof. Nathan.
Michael Perez < Previous Senior
Next Senior > Maya Polsky