This portfolio comprises of a collection of acousmatic works which investigate the role of source bonding in music – the tendency of listeners to relate sounds to their real-world sources and the signifying implication of such a link – with a particular focus on how spatial design can contribute towards source-bonding in the music’s perception as a holistic spatio-sonic entity. A number of compositional strategies, multichannel formats and spatial audio technologies are investigated, with their merits assessed based on their suitability for shaping the qualities of musical space explored. The discussion in this commentary will show how these holistic spaces can have similar qualities of perceived ‘reality’ and ‘abstraction’ to the individual sounds, and how this is investigated in the musical works. I shall also show how the contrasting environmental qualities of these spaces became a source of of inspiration for structuring the development of my music, and how they might evoke subsequent meaning in their experience based on the listener’s understanding of the spatial source bonds.

The five-course guitar was used as an instrument of accompaniment from the mid-sixteenth to the late-eighteenth century, yet its importance in this role has largely been overlooked in scholarship to date. While there are some isolated studies of individual sources, this is the first comprehensive study of the substantial body of extant guidelines with a view to understanding the styles of accompaniment on the instrument and how their practices developed during this period. This thesis documents the chronological development of the performance practices in such a way that parallels may be drawn between these sources and treatises for other instruments of accompaniment. Guitar accompaniments were, however, also strongly influenced by the performance practices associated with alfabeto chord symbols. Thus, to enable an understanding of the more idiomatic characteristics of guitar accompaniment stemming from alfabeto practices, a detailed evaluation of the true sophistication of the language of alfabeto is provided for the first time. This study provides a complete re-evaluation of the five-course guitar as an instrument of accompaniment; it challenges the past relegation of the instrument to ‘light’ or ‘frivolous’ musical repertoires; and it highlights the various approaches that were adopted in diverse performance contexts.

This research forms part of a performance practice degree and focuses on the performance of British organ music written in the period 1945 to 1970. This period was a turbulent time for all those with an interest in the pipe organ, whether they were performers, consultants, organ builders or listeners. The considerable change in the approach to the design, construction and voicing of pipe organs, influenced by the Organ Reform Movement (Orgelbewegung), resulted in strong feelings both for and against the neo-classic organ, and the consequent tensions tested the typical British reserve of many of those directly involved. The challenge for the performer of today is to understand the strengths and weaknesses of British organs in the period and to connect these instruments with the music written for them. The original contribution this research provides is to focus firstly on the organ's mechanisms, including key actions, registration aids and console design and, secondly, on the tonal designs of the organs of the period. Case studies of music are presented, featuring three composers for the organ in this period, Howells, Leighton and Whitlock, the findings of which inform the associated recital which features contrasting pieces from the period 1945 to 1970.

The current thesis is a portfolio of ten musical works composed during the period of 2011 and 2015, including instrumental, mixed media and acousmatic (stereo and multichannel) compositions. These works were developed and composed at my home studio in Oporto (from 2011) and at the Electroacoustic Music Studios at the University of Birmingham (2014 – 2015). This thesis also features observations and commentaries about technical and aesthetical issues that were objects of study during my creative process, which uses musical elements from my culture as inspiration for new musical works. Hence, it presents a reflection on and the validation of results that came from the exploration of several procedures during my development at the University of Birmingham Electroacoustic Music Studios and a chapter dedicated to the traditional instrument from the Azores – the viola da terra – and the two compositions that focus on this instrument. A USB stick is attached to this thesis, containing the audio performances of all musical works, scores and electronic version of this document.

This thesis presents the librettos, scores and CD recordings of two contemporary operas – The Wings of Daedalus and Alexandros – conceived, composed and, in the case of The Wings of Daedalus staged, by myself, along with detailed analysis of the development phases of various different aspects (such as dramaturgy, libretto, staging and characterisation, and particularly the composition of the vocal line and electronic accompaniment of each opera), following them from the initial idea to the final result. All this is paralleled with the period in the development of Western music four hundred years ago that led to the birth of opera. That transitional phase is correlated with my work and its contemporary context, as seen from various viewpoints. I have chosen The Theory of the Affections as an exemplary connecting point between these chronologically distant eras in music, and used it to identify important links between compositional intention and vocal practice in the years leading up to 1600 and those leading up to 2000. This in turn leads me to explain specifically my own compositional techniques - many of which are radically unusual and correlate them with The Theory of the Affections as approaches to creating opera.

The current submitted work consists of a portfolio of musical works, visual pieces and thoughts that preoccupied me over a period of research and creation from late 2014 to 2017. Pieces described in this thesis developed into an overall artistic research and craft which led to a specific workflow serving a new personal aesthetic. Two parts describe two seemingly antonymous automatic creation processes: automatic versus automatic. The first part describes my inspirations together with a consequent formal-ization of my composition techniques. I render generative automatic music both emerging from finite state computation and infinitesimal interference. The second part shows that I often perform my music in specific sites with challenging conditions. I consider them as constraints that eventually also be-come part of the composition system. The materialization of a piece involves aback-and-forth process, between concepts and realities, that I finally transcend in the sense of surrealist automatism. This mechanical and human process is a necessity for the authenticity to my pieces.

This text is a commentary on my preoccupations over the course of my doctoral research from 2013 to 2017. It accompanies a portfolio of works realized and submitted as part of this doctoral thesis, which looks more specifically at feedback as an iterative process between myself as instrument-builder, composer and performer. This approach, which puts sound center stage as the primary material, emphasizes the organic and bidirectional internal influences among these three creative poles. This thesis is devoted to the main subject of my doctoral research: the notion of creative feedback among instrument-builder, composer and performer. It is in five parts: 1. A definition of my principal influences and aesthetic biases; 2. A portrait outlining the connections of influence among the instrument-builder, composer and performer; 3. A discussion of relationships outside the creative process itself, that is to say the influence of other artists (composers, musicians, other instruments) in my approach to research creation; 4. A demonstration of how I use the influences of other composers, other musicians and even other artists whose works speak to and inspire me; and 5. A presentation of three concrete examples from the portfolio realized during my doctoral research The body of work submitted includes: three new instruments, two sound installations,four compositions and three comprovisations.

This thesis addresses interpretative issues arising from notated music, particularly recent guitar music typifying progressive notational and aesthetic trends, from a perspective based on the concepts of mimesis and gesture. Drawing on Adorno’s theory of musical reproduction, scholarship on musical gesture and recent models of performers’ relationship to notation, I propose interpretative strategies aiming at the vindication of the role of the body in the discussion of musical works, while also examining the performing conventions challenged by recent developments in guitar notation. Artistic practice is fundamental to this thesis as it accounts for the exploration of various interpretative strategies and choices derived from the application of the aforementioned concepts. An accompanying folio of videos and recordings documents the impact of these theoretical concepts upon my performing practice. The starting point is a discussion of the performing issues of Brian Ferneyhough’s Kurze Schatten II, a peak of complexity in the guitar literature, and the relationship between musical gesture and the metaphorical domains to which this work alludes. Subsequently, the interpretative strategies proposed here are applied to aesthetic models differing from that of Ferneyhough as well as to music appealing to multi-parametric notation – here considered as a strand deriving from Ferneyhough’s aesthetics – requiring a paradigm shift in its interpretative approach.

Sailing on is an investigation into how light music has evolved from its origins into a style of music for the twenty-first century. I am a light music composer and a contemporary use of the style is explored in a portfolio of compositions, all in score form, substantiated by an autoethnographical commentary. Light as a term to describe music was first used in the nineteenth-century to label music that was created for the entertainment of the masses and it was sometimes used to explain the more accessible works of ‘serious’ composers. The music enjoyed a golden age of approximately one hundred years between 1870 and 1970 and this study contextualises light music in respect of the functions that it fulfils and the relationships it has undergone with serious and popular music during the period and to the present day. Entertainment and accessibility to mass markets are terms used more in relation to commercial music rather than art music and the thesis includes an exploration into the role of light music as part of the industrialised music businesses as well as being at the forefront of technological developments. The relationship between art and money has been difficult for some to reconcile and part of the reason for the criticism and neglect of light music by many in the music establishment and these aspects are considered as part of the contextualisation. I have identified a number of common musical and expressive elements in light music and an analysis of techniques is presented as a means to describe the characteristics of the style. The works surveyed have been selected from a period that embraces the golden age to the present with examples from records, radio, television, film, games and web based media. All these influences plus my own experiences in music have been considered during the composition of the portfolio of music that proffers my interpretation of light music for the twenty-first century.

Kuwait, post-oil (1932), invested heavily in educational development at all levels. A curriculum was developed which included music, both Eastern and Western. Initially the piano was adopted, but the curriculum was broadened to include other Western instruments, more recently the clarinet. A need for a programme of training to produce versatile clarinet teachers in Kuwait was therefore identified. In order to ensure that the curriculum to be designed met the specific needs of Kuwaiti clarinet students, an analysis was made of the social, historical and geographical situation of the country, Kuwaiti Folk Music, Music in Islam, and curriculum and instrumental music teaching in Kuwaiti schools. From these initial findings the specific needs of Kuwaiti clarinet students were identified. These include adult beginners, no aural model of the clarinet, little familiarity with the clarinet repertoire, and no transferable instrumental technical skills. In order to support these students in their learning, theories of motivation were analysed, and situation-specific teaching strategies have been identified and developed. Simultaneously an analysis was made of clarinet teaching, past and present in Kuwait. From these recommendations best practice was identified. These informed curriculum development. As a consequence the Ahmad Alderaiwaish Clarinet Curriculum (AACC) for the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training, Kuwait, was developed. Peer review and critical response followed. The AACC, which is in the form of five parts, delivers the clarinet teacher education element of the Bachelor of Arts programme. These parts are designed primarily for the student and include scales,arpeggios, exercises, pieces and recommended sources, both Eastern folk and classical, and Western music. The former have the additional benefit of preserving and promoting Kuwait’s cultural heritage. Complementary teaching equipment has been invented to introduce students to specific playing techniques with which they were not familiar, for example, breath control.