The following dissertation describes a personal course of research into audio morphing technology, with a primary focus on how such research might impact the composition of contemporary, research-based art music. These two primary concerns have been augmented through considerations of both: the broader literature of musical morphology, and selected analyses from the history of western art music that employ an idiosyncratic interpretation of audio morphing principles. I have attempted throughout to tightly focus these discussions through the lens of my own compositional activity, embodied by the accompanying dissertation composition for ten musicians/sound technicians (for chelsea smith) and its chapter-length analysis. Therefore, following a terminological distinction between appearances and usages of the terms morphing and morphology in the existing literature (Chapter 1), the above materials will be organized in order of their importance to my compositional activity. As such, the analysis of my dissertation composition (Chapter 2) will be presented first. This will be followed by a summary of my technical research (Chapter 3), and three highly personalized interpretations of how morphing principles might be said to apply to works from the past repertoire of the western tradition (Chapters 4-6). The morphing principles alluded to above include: the primacy of pure sound, the decomposition of complex sonic phenomena into simpler elements, the importance of continuous transformation, and the connection of disparate sonic entities through continua of new material. Such principles will not only inform my analyses of past music, but will also be revealed as central to my compositional perspective in for chelsea smith. / Graduate / 0413 / emaildfm@gmail.com