Jacobs School of Music student Kathryn Reilly has been named recipient of the 2025 Austin B. Caswell Award. The award was given for Reilly’s paper, “Cantonese Opera Singers—Composers and Masters of Communication: The Role of Linguistic Tones and Vocal Improvisation in Cantonese Opera.”
The committee was impressed by the creative topic and argument. They described the paper as well-cited and researched, praising its clear and effective writing and the substantial list of sources. The author shows a convincing personal voice and a deep connection to the topic. Through a clear argument and effective use of graphics and examples, the author makes a technical argument founded on linguistics and a non-Western repertoire accessible to non-specialists.
Reilly is a senior from Mamaroneck, New York studying vocal performance at the Jacobs School of Music, with a minor in media advertising. She studies voice with Michelle DeYoung. Her Chinese, Irish, and Puerto Rican heritage deeply influences her identity, musically and artistically. On the rare chance she isn’t singing, you can find her whipping something up in the kitchen, biking around campus, or snapping pics of IU’s finest residents—its squirrels. She is also the social chair of Indiana University’s premier all-female a cappella group, Ladies First. She graduates in May 2025 and is planning to get her Masters in Vocal Performance post-graduation.
“Cantonese Opera Singers—Composers and Masters of Communication: The Role of Linguistic Tones and Vocal Improvisation in Cantonese Opera.”
by Kathryn Reilly
In the Western operatic tradition, the writing of libretti—which contain the plot and the poetry—precedes the composition of the music. Composers don’t start their work from a blank page but from a finished dramatic text, which dictates the type of setting each part will require. This practice is reversed in Cantonese opera (Yueju), a musical tradition from far south China. In this kind of opera, librettists create new texts for pre-existing melodies, having to align—as much as possible—the six tones of the Cantonese language with the chosen melody. This paper describes the compositional process emphasizing the crucial role of performance, where singers interpret and improvise upon the written text to ensure the best artistic result of the complex setting.
Austin B. Caswell was a devoted teacher and member of the musicology faculty at Indiana University
The Austin B. Caswell Award was established in 1998 in honor of Caswell, a devoted teacher and member of the musicology faculty at Indiana University from 1966 until his retirement in 1996. Each spring, the award recognizes the best undergraduate music history projects submitted at the Jacobs School.
Caswell was born in Minneapolis, MN, the son of Austin B. Caswell Sr. and Corice Woodruff Caswell. A graduate of West High School (Minneapolis, 1949), Caswell received his B.A. in History from Amherst College (1953), and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of Minnesota (1957, 1964).
His early years of teaching included the Vermont Academy and the University of Minnesota General College. But the bulk of his teaching career was as Professor of Musicology at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music (1966-1996) where he served as Chairman of the Musicology Department for several years. He also taught for the IU Honors College (1973-2006) and the IU Intensive Freshman Seminar program.
A lifetime choral musician, Caswell also served as Music Director for several churches including Wayzata Community Church (Minneapolis, MN, 1961-1966) and First United Church (Bloomington, IN, 1966-1971).
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