When Elaina Denney learned about the Undergraduate Research Program at UD, it was music to her ears.

Denney, AS 2003, a Dean's Scholar who is majoring in music with a focus on chamber music, was interested in doing original research on women composers. With the support of the College of Arts and Science's Summer Scholars program, which pays selected undergraduates a stipend to concentrate on research, she worked last summer with music Prof. Cynthia Carr, who was studying several female composers.

In the fall, Denney narrowed her focus to two of those composers, Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel. She began working with Russell Murray, associate professor of music history and literature, on a senior thesis about their work and their lives. The two women, who lived in the 1800s and met at least once, were both related to better-known male composers: Clara Schumann was married to Robert Schumann and Hensel's brother was Felix Mendelssohn.

"I've done research on their lives, and I'm analyzing their compositional styles and the influences on their work," Denney says of the two women composers. "So far, I'm finding more differences between them than similarities. Like all composers, their work reflects their individual personalities and unique styles."

Murray, whose own specialty is 16th-century Italian music, says undergraduate research is necessarily different in the arts than in the sciences. "Research in music is much more of an individual undertaking," he says. "Rather than having a student share your research project, a faculty member in the arts shares knowledge about the process of doing research and guides the students as they proceed."

Denney, who plans to teach piano for a year and then attend graduate school, says, "I've learned so much from doing this research, especially analyzing the compositions. That's something that I learned about in theory classes, but now I've done it in much more depth."

She says she's also learned presentation skills and recently attended the 2003 Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, where she presented some of her research findings. And, in a different type of presentation, she performed selections of the two composers' work during a piano recital this spring.

Murray says that working with an undergraduate researcher is positive for faculty, too. "It lets you work with students, and it helps you focus," he says. "Plus, it lets you share the research process with someone, which is always a rewarding experience."