abstract: “OUT.” is a song cycle for bass and piano that follows the coming out process of a young homosexual who has been raised in a politically and religiously conservative corner of American culture. This character was taught from a very young age that anything or anyone of a queer nature was inherently wrong and should be avoided and scorned. The story arc captured in this seven-movement work is only a small portion of what the character ultimately goes through as they mature. This portion of their narrative has been isolated with the hope of embodying a queer character of strength, and this piece begins with the character knowing, understanding, and having already come to terms with their own sexuality. The story outlined in this song cycle is one of hardship that ultimately leads to triumph, as a demonstration that overcoming queer suppression is an achievable goal. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Composition 2019

abstract: As clarinet students progress in their studies, there comes a point at which many are assigned to perform contemporary repertoire that is either overplayed due to accessibility and use in pedagogy, or includes difficult extended techniques like microtones, multiphonics, and more. This project identifies a “gap” in unaccompanied clarinet repertoire and seeks to expand this repertoire by outlining a program of study featuring five newly commissioned unaccompanied clarinet solos through which students can learn both traditional and untraditional techniques. Each of the first four works focus on one aspect of clarinet technique—musicality, the altissimo register, microtones, and multiphonics, respectively—and the final work is a culmination of all these techniques. Included in this document is biographical information for each composer, program notes, a brief description, and a performance guide for each piece. Additionally, each work was recorded by the author and included with this document. / Dissertation/Thesis / Performer: Olivia Meadows, Composer: Zachary Bush / Performer: Olivia Meadows, Composer: Josh Gottry / Performer: Olivia Meadows, Composer: Kurt Mehlenbacher / Performer: Olivia Meadows, Composer: Spencer Brand / Performer: Olivia Meadows, Composer: Eric P. Mandat / Doctoral Dissertation Music 2019

The early polystylism of Alfred Schnittke demonstrates a gradual movement away from strict serialism towards a more mimetic music of quotations, allusions, aleatoric techniques, and tonal styles. This thesis investigates three pieces from 1968: film music for The Glass Harmonica, Serenade for Five Musicians, and Violin Sonata No. 2, Quasi Una Sonata. The first piece is analyzed as a clash of two ideas, the transcendent and the grotesque, which are exhibited in the music’s allusions to J. S. Bach and the presence of twentieth-century aleatory and atonality. The various technical features of Serenade and Violin Sonata No. 2 show the importance of dodecaphony and motivic atonality as unifying procedures. Temporal and pitch indeterminacy are also prevalent but it is perhaps the fleeting tonal references that hint at how important appropriation of older styles would be for Schnittke’s later music.

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Military oriented publications Army Times and Veterans of Foreign Wars publish stories praising wounded warriors returning to duty. This praise complicates the conception of masculinity and ability among service-members. One reading of Judith Butler’s chapter “Bodies that Matter” aids understanding how the military forms bodies of service-members and how these bodies overcome injury. Simi Linton criticizes this rhetoric of overcoming as oppressive, and Garry B. Trudeau’s illustrated narrative The Long Road Home: One Step at a Time offers a positive alternative to reenlisting. This alternative resists this militaristic rhetoric, which will lead to detrimental consequences. The military forms civilians into service-members, andButler’s reading of Plato’s masculine autogenesis applies to the formation of service-members. Military and civilian audiences accept this reproduction of service-members, andButler’s resistance to Plato serves individuals and society. Linton’s critique of the rhetoric of overcoming also serves individuals and society. This rhetoric causes distress among individuals with disabilities, and if the military and society embrace this rhetoric, individuals with and without disabilities will suffer. Fortunately, Trudeau diverts this rhetoric of overcoming. His narrative reminds audiences a return to civilian life does not end one’s masculinity. Rehabilitation and recovery require dedication and focus, two virtues gained through military training and service. As members of society, we need to recognize the detrimental affects of this rhetoric of return. If we accept this conception of masculinity, it will influence our understanding of masculinity and ability, which will then permeate throughout society.

Set in Motion is a composition in two movements for an ensemble of 10 instruments that interacts with a computer in real-time performance using Max/MSP software. The instrumental writing in the piece focuses on incorporating electronic composition techniques into acoustic composition. Techniques such as constructing envelopes, shading, and sound masses, which are common in electronic works are applied to the ensemble. Also, the intervals of a major and minor second are important in the instrumental writing. These intervals provided the basis for the material, which was then transformed algorithmically, both in individual lines and whole sections of music. In terms of the electronics, the first movement takes advantage of the interactive possibilities of the software. The electronic part is created through the computer extending, processing, and responding to the instruments. The techniques include extracting small grains of sound from the live instruments and repeating them, analyzing the pitch of the signal and amplifying overtones, and rearranging fragments in blocks of recorded sound. The second movement changes the focus of the electronic sound. The electronics are made of precomposed gestures that compliment the live instruments. These gestures are categorized and selected randomly according to specific characteristics. Filtering and other effects applied to the sounds are chosen randomly as well.

This dissertation addresses Habermas' search for a communicative foundation for universal rationality as a basis for validating assertions, in the light of the postmodern criticism that all universalizing principles represent the authority, or dominance, of individuals or cultures. By abandoning the idea of validity altogether, postmodern scholars would reduce social organization to power struggles. Modernist criticize this position as a return to relativism. Working at the intersection between these two positions, Habermas maintains the modern distinction between authority and validity, but suggests that the distinction remains blurred by prejudice and self-interest inherent in everyday discourse. To confront prejudice and self-interest, and re-establish a universal standard for validity, Habermas identifies the universal presuppositions for communication and describes them as the conditions for ideal speech. These ideal speech conditions would neutralize prejudice and self-interest, while establishing a universal standard for validity based on consensus--agreement based solely on the force of the strongest argument My thesis is that the ideal speech situation must actually rely on an ethic of discourse in order to create and maintain something like the ideal conditions that Habermas identifies. The ideal speech situation is often called an ethic because it describes how we ought to act during discourse; we ought to act so as to affirm the basic presuppositions inherent in all speech acts. I argue that guidelines for ideal speech do not, by themselves, eliminate prejudice or establish conditions for consensus formation. Habermas seems to accept the inadequacy of these guidelines and relies upon a supplementary disposition that must be adopted by the speakers. This disposition achieves ideal conditions by tacitly requiring speakers to use language literally, but the literal language requirement has no universal foundation in the universal presuppositions of communication. Without this universal foundation, Habermas' discourse theory no longer establishes universal ground for validity, or truth / acase@tulane.edu

This is a work for chamber ensemble. It is an exercise in writing for winds and strings in both soloistic and collaborative contexts, and is representative of the progress made during graduate school at the University of Iowa.