Acheron, River of Woe is a large-scale piece for wind symphony accompanied by an analytical thesis. It is a single-movement programmatic piece lasting twelve minutes scored for a wind symphony consisting of three flutes (one doubling piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two bassoons, contrabassoon, E-flat clarinet, three B-flat clarinets, A clarinet, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, four saxophones, four trumpets, four horns, two trombones, bass trombone, euphonium, tuba, string bass, timpani, and three percussionists. This piece represents a journey on the River Acheron, inspired by quotations taken from several Greek poets of antiquity. The entire piece flows as one long, fluid stream of music, with different sonic currents, waves, and eddies moving through it. Modal theory governs its harmonic structure and is the foundation of the piece.

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 scored for a minimum instrumentation of piccolo, 6 flutes, 3 oboes, 3 bassoons, 9 B-flat clarinets, B-flat bass clarinet, 2 E-flat alto saxophones, B-flat tenor saxophone, E-flat baritone saxophone, 4 B-flat trumpets, 4 horns in F, 3 tenor trombones, bass trombone, 2 euphoniums, 2 tubas, timpani, and 4 percussionists. The music consists of three movements (slow-slow-fast) lasting a total of approximately seventeen minutes. The duration of each of the three movements is six minutes, four and one-half minutes, and six and one-half minutes, respectively. The document also contains an analysis of the work by the composer. The analysis explores the compositional style of the work, focusing on musical aspects within each movement that were governing parameters in the compositional process.

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This is an analysis for Symphonic Portrait: The Patriarch, which is the first in a trilogy of works each depicting one of the Deities in the Holy Trinity. It is scored for symphonic band consisting of piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, E^b clarinet, three B^b clarinets, alto clarinet, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, two alto saxes, tenor sax, baritone sax, two bassoons, three B^b cornets, two B^b trumpets, four F horns, three trombones, euphoniums (div.), tubas (div.), string bass, timpani, eight percussionists playing bells, chimes, vibraphone, xylophone, marimba, snare drum, bass drum, three tom-toms (high, medium, low), suspended cymbal, crash cymbals, two tam-tams (large and medium), triangle, tambourine, vibra slap, steel plate, finger cymbals, bell tree, piano, harp, and organ. The music consists of two major parts; the scenario and the main body. Each part lasts six minutes, giving the work a total duration time of about twelve minutes.

Balbuzard is a musical composition of approximately twelve minutes in length, scored for solo clarinet, wind symphony and electronics. It focuses on cluster-like sound masses and explores ways of using these to give the music a clear sense of direction. To this end, tools were developed using a variety of computer applications or programming languages, such as Lisp, OpenMusic and Cubase. These tools made possible a kind of graphic composition where diagrams of different shapes were entered into a computer interface and converted into source material. The generated source material consisted of several rhythmic strata whose pitches, mainly part of diatonic, octatonic or chromatic collections, followed the contour of the entered shape. With this visual process, it was also possible to explore the creation of contrapuntal textures by entering diagrams of lines representing the path of each contrapuntal voice.* / *This dissertation is a compound document (contains both a paper copy and a CD as part of the dissertation). The CD requires the following system requirements: Windows MediaPlayer or RealPlayer.

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Fading Points is a piece of music for large wind ensemble. The work is concerned with time perception and is designed to convey to the listener a long temporal progression from slow music to fast music. To this end, the work is written using musical gestures specifically designed for their portrayal of musical time. The work consists of four sections, each of which is described in detail in the analytical part of the thesis. The analysis also describes the rhythmic language, which is created around short rhythmic cells. These cells are based on ratios and are used in all levels of the piece from the surface rhythm to the large formal divisions. The harmonic language is also described. The vertical harmony is derived from a dense chord presented at the beginning of the piece. The horizontal pitch material is created from small pitch cells, also taken from the opening chord. These cells are used in isolation but are also combined to create modes, which are the focus of the latter parts of the piece.

Soar! is a musical composition written for wind ensemble and computer music. The total duration of the work is approximately 10 minutes. Flocking behavior of migratory birds serves as the most prominent influence on the imagery and local structure of the composition. The cyclical nature of the birds' journey inspires palindromic designs in the temporal domain. Aesthetically, Soar! portrays the fluid shapes of the flocks with numerous grains in the sounds. This effect is achieved by giving individual parts high degree of independence, especially in regards to rhythm. Technically, Soar! explores various interactions among instrumental lines in a wind ensemble, constructs overarching symmetrical structures, and integrates a large ensemble with computer music. The conductor acts as the leader at several improvisational moments in Soar! The use of conductor-initiated musical events in the piece can be traced back through the historic lineage of aleatoric compositions since the middle of the twentieth century. [Score is on p. 54-92.]

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