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Paintings and Palaces, or the Lament of the Burger Flipper

Description: The opera is scored for chamber orchestra consisting of one oboe, two Bb clarinets, two horns in F, one trumpet in C, one tenor trombone, two percussionists (playing snare drum, bass drum, tambourine, wood block, triangle, suspended cymbal, crash cymbal, agogo bells, cow bell, brake drum, metal whistle, whip, large gong, Glockenspiel, chimes, timpani in F (low) and C), eight or more violins in two parts, six or more violas in two parts, and eight or more cellos in two parts. The characters are… more
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Date: May 1999
Creator: Salfen, Kevin McGregor

Techniques of Sensual Perception: The Creation of Emotional Pathways

Description: Some artists strive to create artwork that has aesthetic value. If a piece of artwork has the ability to capture the attention of an audience, it must contain strong sensual attributes. Thus, understanding how to design an art form to contain strong sensual attributes may increase the possibility of an aesthetic experience. Since aesthetics is an experience of sensations perceived when in contact with a creative form in any artistic discipline, it is necessary for an artist to understand the na… more
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Date: December 1999
Creator: Henry, Jon L.

As Darkness Falls: A Composition for Wind Ensemble

Description: As Darkness Falls is a composition that explores our interaction with several aspects of darkness through the use of musical imagery. The imagery attempts to reflect the moods, feelings, and impressions of a person as he or she interacts with darkness. The non-programmatic character of the composition allows listeners to superimpose their own experiences onto the musical tapestry in order to manifest a personal connection between the listener and the music. As Darkness Falls is a composition sc… more
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Date: December 1999
Creator: Prinz, Kendall R.

'...and one of time.': A Composition for Full Orchestra with Narration

Description: ‘...and one of time.' is a reinterpretation of a small musical moment from Philip Glass' opera, Einstein on the Beach, centered around the phrase "Berne, Switzerland 1905." This reinterpretation is realized through the use of several different compositional techniques including spectral composition, micropolyphony and dodecaphony, as well as the application of extra-musical models developed by Alan Lightman, John Gardner, Italo Calvino and Albert Einstein.
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Date: December 1999
Creator: Rinker, John Thomas
open access

Heart of the Fathers, for Wind Symphony

Description: Heart of the Fathers is a programmatic, seven movement work for wind symphony depicting my ancestors and their role as part of the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The movements represent their spiritual experiences, labors, times of joy, persecution, migration, and finally their arrival and success in their new homeland. The piece is organized in seven movements. Each movement represents a different portion of history leading to the western migration of my ancestors… more
Date: May 2000
Creator: Anderson, Stephen Reg
open access

Haiku Seasons

Description: Haiku Seasons is a choral work that uses several haiku to portray moments in nature. Spread throughout the performance space, four choirs (SATB, 3/part) depict larger parts of the pastoral scene (i.e., mountains, the moon, etc.). Soloists depart from the choirs in order to perform solo, duo, trio, and quartet passages, which take place throughout the work. If enough singers are available, individual soloists may be used. The soloist groups display the more intimate moments of the scenes (i.e., … more
Date: December 2000
Creator: Smith, Steven Lyle
open access

Three Voices for voices, woodwind, percussion, and string instruments

Description: Composed for soprano, tenor, and baritone voices, woodwind, percussion, and string instruments, Three Voices is a polyglotic work that includes German, Chinese, and Spanish texts. The texts are chosen from Brecht Bertolt's Das Schiff, Po Chu I's Lang T'ao Sha, and Frederico Garcia Lorcá's Mar. Significant features of the piece are 1) application of Chinese operatic singing methods to vocal material in the sections that use Chinese text, 2) use of western instruments to emulate the sound of cer… more
Date: December 2000
Creator: Wu, Man-Mei
open access

Present Absence: A work for string quintet and live electronics

Description: Present Absence is a work that integrates electronic processing and live performance. It is approximately 20 minutes long and is divided into three movements. The movements are distinct from each other, but are related through various elements. Incorporating electronic processing and live performance can be cumbersome. The primary objective of this piece is to use electronic processing in a manner that liberates the performers from any restrictions imposed by the use of electronic processin… more
Date: May 2001
Creator: Bell, Jeffrey C.

Five Seasons: A composition for flutist and percussionist

Description: Five Seasons is a musical work for flute and percussion. The flutist alternately performs on the C flute with a B foot, alto flute, piccolo, and bass flute in each movement. The percussionist also plays different instruments in each movement: the vibraphone for Mid-Summer; the xylophone for Fall; the woodblock, temple block, and cowbells for Spring; the glockenspiel for Summer; and the marimba for Winter. The five movements of this work - Mid-Summer, Fall, Spring, Summer, and Winter - are based… more
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Date: August 2001
Creator: Kim, Chol-Ho
open access

Rhapsody for Piano and Small Orchestra

Description: Rhapsody for Piano and Small Orchestra is a one-movement composition in a concerto fashion for seventeen players, and is about nine minutes in duration. The overall form of this work is A B C D E D1 C1 B1 A1. This work contains various hidden compositional devices such as the golden section principle and a palindrome structure. These devices are applied not only to the structure of the work, but also to the pitch related and rhythm-related matters. Also, certain melodic and rhythmic cells are … more
Date: December 2001
Creator: Ahn-Kim, Yong Hee
open access

Pilgrim Carnival

Description: This thesis explores an experimental music approach to writing autobiography. As a composition, Pilgrim Carnival took place as a travelling series of events. The central event was a sound installation for a blindfolded audience. This essay is a description of that series of events as well as a discussion of similar precedents in interdisciplinary art. Beginning with Luigi Russolo and Marcel Duchamp, aspects of autobiography are examined in both noise music and the concept of the ready-made a… more
Date: August 2002
Creator: House, Kayli

Breaking Through: A Composition for Symphony Orchestra

Description: Breaking Through is a single-movement composition for symphony orchestra based on a fourteen-note melody. Every harmonic and melodic figure except the bass line is derived from this source melody. The structure of the work is based on a number of musical dichotomies that work on both local and large-scale levels. The local dichotomies contrast consonance with dissonance and ambiguity with clarity (in respect to texture and rhythm). The dichotomy of two-part form versus three-part form and t… more
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Date: August 2002
Creator: Dribus, John Alexander
open access

Germinal Ideas and Processes within plies (2002): A Chamber Work for Eleven Players

Description: The piece is a twenty minute work discoursing the integration and eventual dissolution of two separate musical strands. The pitch material of each strand is determined from synthetic scales whose intervalic content duplicates at the following intervals: Perfect 12th, Diminished 12th, Minor 9th, Perfect 8ve, and Major 7th. A proportional means of temporal compression is generated through the use of the factor, 11/15 (e.g. Event 2 is 11/15 the duration of Event 1). Various elements of jazz music … more
Date: December 2002
Creator: Stecher, David
open access

Now All the Fingers of This Tree

Description: Now All the Fingers of This Tree is a work in two movements based upon a poem of the same name by E. E. Cummings. It is divided into two movements: The first movement is scored for nine part solo soprano, where one performer records each of the nine vocal lines. The second movement is an electro-acoustic work derived from four phrases of the original recording of the first movement. Total duration of the work is approximately 19 minutes. The paper provides a detailed analysis of both movements … more
Date: May 2003
Creator: Wood, Kelly Thomas
open access

The Prayer of Daniel: for flute (with alto flute), clarinet (with bass clarinet), violin, cello, doumbek, percussion, piano, bass-baritone voice, and men's chorus

Description: The Prayer of Daniel is a chamber piece in the style of an oratorio for vocal bass-baritone soloist, flute doubling on alto flute, B flat clarinet doubling on bass clarinet, violin, cello, piano, percussion on vibraphone and marimba, doumbek (a middle eastern drum), and men's chorus (TTBB). The approximate duration is thirty minutes. The text comes from the Old Testament book of Daniel, Chapter 9 verses 4 through 19. In these passages the prophet Daniel rends from his heart a prayer of repenta… more
Date: August 2003
Creator: Gutierrez, Jason
open access

Till Millennial Kingdom: A Composition for Trumpet, Three Percussionists, and Tape

Description: Till Millennial Kingdom is a single-movement composition, eleven minutes in length, combining a trumpet, three percussionists, and tape. Throughout this text, use of the word "tape" will refer to pre-recorded audio on compact disk. This is also a programmatic composition, in that it uses music to depict a non-musical event. The form and instrumentation of Till Millennial Kingdom create a musical depiction of natural and supernatural events as they relate to biblical prophecy. The trumpet makes… more
Date: August 2003
Creator: Stegall, Jermaine Edward
open access

Tele: Using Vernacular Performance Practices in an Eight-Channel Environment

Description: Examines the use of vernacular, country guitar styles in an electro-acoustic environment. Special attention is given to performance practices and explanation of techniques. Electro-acoustic techniques-including sound design and spatialization-are given with sonogram analyses and excerpts from the score. Compositional considerations are contrasted with those of Mario Davidovsky and Jean-Claude Risset with special emphasis on electro-acoustic approaches. Contextualization of the piece in referenc… more
Date: August 2003
Creator: Welch, Chapman
open access

Clockwork Plums

Description: Based on a story by Joshua Forehand with additional lyrics by Joshua Bradford, Clockwork Plums is an original musical work that integrates techniques and ideas from composers and different cultures. The accompanying essay about the work includes a summary of the story, "Clockwork Plums," some historical background covering 30 years of pop music, an analysis focusing on the use of African and Reichian compositional devices, and discussion about controlled improvisation and use of the voice as co… more
Date: May 2004
Creator: Bradford, Joshua
open access

UNRAVEL: Acoustic and Electronic Resynthesis

Description: UNRAVEL, a work for alto saxophone and interactive electronics. Examines works for saxophone and electro-acoustic music. Analyzes modes of interactivity using Robert Rowe's guidelines, with sonogram, score, and programming examples. Investigates hybrid serial-parallel signal-processing networks, and their potential for timbral transformations. Explores compositional working methods, particularly as related to electro-acoustic music.
Date: August 2004
Creator: McCulloch, Peter
open access

Prayers of Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication: A Composition for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble

Description: This paper examines the relationship between text and music in Prayers of Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication - a four-movement composition, fourteen minutes in length, for soprano, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, violin, double bass, and percussion. The text of the composition is taken from the Psalms and The Book of Common Prayer. The names and themes of the movements follow an ancient pattern for prayer identified by the acronym, A.C.T.S. Compositional consideration… more
Date: August 2004
Creator: Monroe, Deborah J.
open access

The Secret Art of Science: An Aural-Based Analysis of Jonty Harrison's Acousmatic Work "Pair/Impair"

Description: This paper observes the problems that impede meaningful analysis of form and structure in modern music, specifically electronic music. The premise of this research is to present methods, tools and practice for analyzing music whose visual interpretation, if any, do not represent the aural result of the composition. The means for suggesting a method are derived from documented observations in aural psychology, as well as composers' writings about musical perception. The result is an analytic mod… more
Date: August 2004
Creator: Vega, Henry
open access

RevealingReveilingReveling

Description: This thesis explores the possibilities of communication in the context of a sound composition. In RevealingReveilingReveling, a series of questions concerning communication posed by John Cage, coupled with an extension of those questions posed by myself, are set to recorded sounds-in-the-world. The intention is to create a greater awareness of that which there is to listen in our world. The first part of this essay discusses influences of philosophical thought during the process of composing … more
Date: May 2005
Creator: Colaruotolo, John
open access

A Rhetorical Guide to Ebb

Description: In the essay A Rhetorical Guide to Ebb I explore the diverse array of influences in art, and music that guided the creation of the composition Ebb, for 13 musicians and electronics. Of those influences, the boxes of the American artist Joseph Cornell played a particularly important role. Having based the conceptual framework for Ebb on ideas taken from Cornell, the essay, instead of being driven by a single thesis, involves the creation of conceptual boxes. These conceptual boxes emphasize the … more
Date: May 2006
Creator: Zajicek, Daniel James
open access

The Surface: A Synthesis

Description: This paper examines the speech-based musical realization of "The Surface" and its attempt to assimilate the poem at the structural, sonic, and expressive level. The software and analysis/re-synthesis techniques used to create timbres heard in the composition are discussed in detail. In addition to technical and structural issues, the common elements of the two art forms are considered within the context of the digital domain.
Date: May 2001
Creator: Willis, Stephen
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