Michael Varno

Artist Biography

My thesis studies how music connects people and ultimately influences social change. Music allows audience members to enter the world of the performer. It offers insight into the performer’s life as they present themselves in a vulnerable and open manner. Through this, the performer can form a deeper connection with the audience member. The audience member puts themselves in the place of the performer, offering the opportunity for performers to speak up for what they believe in through song. Once an audience member has experienced the life of someone else, they are more likely to stand up for injustices toward that performer or their culture. An artist may write a song that specifically calls for change or one that is a reaction to a societal change. The audience member is somehow influenced by the music to donate money or fight for someone else’s rights. Music can be used in many ways to influence a listener. Protests, political campaigns, and marketing strategies all use music to find a way to get to the listener in a different way than speech. I have discovered how truly universal music can be and the strong connective powers it has..

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Thesis Abstract

I am a passionate, driven, and innovative performing artist and teacher. Throughout my time performing and rehearsing (mostly musical theatre), I have developed my own artistic autonomy. I always add my own twist to a song or character that is unlike what I have heard before to ensure there is a piece of me in it. When teaching students, I implore them to create their own characters instead of becoming a reproduction of a performer they have seen. Through the development of our own individual performative characters, we allow the audience to step into our world and see how the lives of the performer and the character meld into one on stage.