Leigh Van Handel

With the increasing number of Chinese international students majoring in voice performance and opera at universities in North America and the growing size of China’s singing market in recent years, teaching Chinese art song in Western universities and conservatories of music has become beneficial. This dissertation aims to provide a creative and innovative performance and academic pathway for instructors who have interest in Chinese art song, so as to allow them to have a more comprehensive understanding of the genre and more importantly to make them more able to incorporate Chinese art song into their curriculums. To achieve this goal, the information will be presented in the following chapters. Chapter 1 is a brief introduction to the history of Chinese art song’s development from 1900s to the present. Chapter 2 is the clarification of the definition of Chinese art song. By taking Chinese cultural factors into discussion, this chapter will allow instructors to have a better and more appropriate understanding of the genre. Chapter 3 is an exploration of the value of Chinese art song to Western vocal pedagogy; 16 pieces of Chinese art songs will be introduced as teaching materials for Western undergraduate voice performance programs. Chapter 4 is an introduction to a new approach to Mandarin IPA and the tutorial which will allow instructors to read and learn the pronunciation of lyrics of this genre more effectively even without a Mandarin coach. Chapter 5 is an auxiliary section providing the song descriptions, pinyin notation, new Mandarin IPA notation, lyric translations and word-by-word translations for the selected 16 pieces; and Appendix A is a collection of the sheet music for the 16 Chinese art songs for middle voice.

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