Author, Institution: Yusuke Ishii, Kaunas University of Technology
Science area, field of science: Humanities, History and Theory of Arts, H003
Research Supervisors: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Darius Kučinskas (Kaunas University of Technology, Humanities, History and Theory of Arts, H003).
Dissertation Defence Board of History and Theory of Arts Science Field:
Prof. Dr. Šarūnas Paunksnis (Kaunas University of Technology, Humanities, Philosophy, H001) – chairperson
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Indrė Gražulevičiūtė-Vileniškė (Vilnius Academy of Arts, Humanities, History and Theory of Arts, H003)
Prof. Dr. Ramunė Kasperė (Kaunas University of Technology, Humanities, Philology, H004)
Prof. Dr. Dario Martinelli (Kaunas University of Technology, Humanities, History and Theory of Arts, H003)
Prof. Dr. Edward Venn (Leeds University, United Kingdom, Humanities, History and Theory of Arts, H003)
Dissertation defence meeting will be at Rectorate Hall of Kaunas University of Technology (K. Donelaičio 73-402, Kaunas)
The doctoral dissertation is available at the library of Kaunas University of Technology (Gedimino 50, Kaunas) and on the internet: Y. Ishii el. disertacija.pdf
© Y. Ishii, 2026 “The text of the thesis may not be copied, distributed, published, made public, including by making it publicly available on computer networks (Internet), reproduced in any form or by any means, including, but not limited to, electronic, mechanical or other means. Pursuant to Article 25(1) of the Law on Copyright and Related Rights of the Republic of Lithuania, a person with a disability who has difficulties in reading a document of a thesis published on the Internet, and insofar as this is justified by a particular disability, shall request that the document be made available in an alternative form by e-mail to doktorantura@ktu.lt.”
Annotation: The dissertation examines the development of modernism in Lithuanian émigré music in the United States, its transformations, and its relationship to composers’ cultural identities. The research focuses on chamber and symphonic music by Lithuanian composers who lived and worked in the United States after the Second World War. In the first and second sections modernism is approached not only as a set of compositional techniques or stylistic devices, but as a historically and culturally conditioned artistic stance related to artistic autonomy, the search for innovation, and cultural identity. The study draws on musicological literature, musical analysis, and archival sources, including previously unpublished or presumed-lost works. In third section it examines the music of Vytautas Bacevičius, Jeronimas Kačinskas, Jonas Švedas, and other émigré composers. The research demonstrates that Lithuanian émigré modernism was not a unified stylistic phenomenon. It developed between Western models of modernism and the need to preserve cultural and individual distinctiveness. Bacevičius’s “cosmic music” reveals an interaction between European modernism and the American New Age environment; Kačinskas transformed modernist ideas in response to a new context; and in Švedas’s music, folkloric material was integrated into serial and other modernist techniques. The study shows that this tension became a productive creative premise and allows Lithuanian émigré music to be understood as a distinctive twentieth-century modernist experience.