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OVERGROWN discusses the music elements found in the thesis composition of the same name. OVERGROWN was written for soprano solo, flute, bass clarinet, soprano saxophone, baritone saxophone, trumpet, trombone, vibraphone, percussion, cello and double bass. The text was written by Matthew Raymond Smith.

There are numerous challenges to singing contemporary classical vocal music including a number of harmonic, melodic, rhythmic, and formal elements not commonly seen in the western Classical or Romantic era compositions. There are new notations, new sounds, new ideas, and new demands. Finding a way to train college-aged singers to perform standard classical repertoire alongside contemporary classical repertoire has been a personal goal for many years. This essay contains exercises and vocalises to help train singers to prepare their instrument to perform the demanding music presented in this body of repertoire. Musical concepts covered in this essay include large interval training, laughing drills, tone clusters, and a variety of others. Current scholarship on this subject does not address the pedagogical steps of teaching music classified as contemporary classical vocal music. This essay provides exercises, vocalises, and recommendations for the development of vocal techniques required to perform works from this repertoire with healthy and secure technique.

Korean Canadian composer Serra Miyeun Hwang (1962-) has written three compositions for cello- Beckoning, Presence, and Hundredth View- inspired by Korean culture and traditional music. She infuses each piece with Korean elements, including special rhythmic patterns, text, and tone color, which are influenced and motivated by traditional Korean percussion music, religions, culture, combined with techniques of Western instrumental performance. The purpose of this study is to introduce Hwang’s music to other cellists and help them incorporate the historical and cultural aspects of Korean traditional music to their performance practices. By analyzing Hwang’s compositions in greater detail, this essay will provide cellists practice guidelines to achieve the desired tone and interpretive gestures of new cello repertoire. This essay contains Hwang’s biography and her philosophy of music and a description of the Korean influences on her music, including the genres of traditional music in Korea, their cultural background, music in Shaman ceremonies, Buddhist music, and p’ungmul (folk drumming and dance). There is also a performance guide of Beckoning for Cello and two Korean Drums; Presence for Soprano, Cello, and Piano; and Hundredth View for Solo Cello with my own interpretation. Learning Hwang’s pieces will bring cellists new experiences that are a mixture of music, culture, thoughts, and methods from Western and Eastern influences.

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

Kernel is a fifteen-minute work for wind ensemble. Its unifying strands of rhythm, melody, and harmony are spun out of simple four-note tone clusters which undergo changes in contour, intervallic inversion, register, texture, and harmonic environment. These four notes make up the "kernel" of the work, a word used by Breton to refer to the indestructible element of darkness prior to all creative invention, as well as a term used in computer science to refer to the crucial element of a system that, if it should fail, does so loudly.

abstract: This project’s goal is to expand the repertoire for soprano saxophone featuring improvisation. Each work detailed in this document features improvisation as an integral component. The first piece, Impetus, was written by Grant Jahn for soprano saxophone and piano. The second piece, Sonata, was written for the same instrumentation by Brett Wery. Ethan Cypress wrote the third work for solo soprano saxophone, Noir et Bleu. The final composition on the project, Counterpunch by Gregory Wanamaker, was written for saxophone sextet. This paper also includes composer biographies, program notes, performance guides, and composer questionnaires. The central component of this project is a recording of all these works which features the author. / Dissertation/Thesis / Counterpunch for Saxophone Sextet, by Gregory Wanamaker / Sonata for Soprano Saxophone and Piano, II. Adagio sognando – “Bluesy” andantino by Brett Wery / Sonata for Soprano Saxophone and Piano, III. Danza ritmica, by Brett Wery / Noir et Bleu for Solo Soprano Saxophone, by Ethan Cypress / Impetus for Soprano Saxophone and Piano, by Grant Jahn / Sonata for Soprano Saxophone and Piano, I. Allegro ma non troppo, by Brett Wery / Doctoral Dissertation Music 2018

On the Creation of Matter is a ten-minute composition for orchestra in which I explore large-scale musical texture through the use of uncommon orchestral techniques. The piece is comprised of three major sections: the introduction of space and time, the event, and the culmination. Each section features new textures while retaining harmonic references to earlier material. Heavily influenced by the works of György Ligeti and Krzysztof Penderecki, On the Creation of Matter musically captures the initial stillness of space and time and follows their transformation through a major astronomical event. In On the Creation of Matter I use concepts first explored by Ligeti and Penderecki and manipulate them to create a fully original new work for the concert stage.

The aesthetic of this composition begins with a flurry of notes creating a wall of sound and slowly disintegrates into becoming something light and airy. Beginning is dense and hurried with overlapping entrances, in the beginning I aim to achieve an overall effect of very smooth and natural slowing down. It feels rhythmic but the pulse is somewhat ambiguous. There are chains of flurried notes followed by rests in the individual parts but the rests are hidden by the overlapping entrances so it feels continuous. As holes open in the texture and the slowing down process takes effect, fragments of a melody begin to peak out of the texture and melt back in. Eventually the piece has completely slowed down and the full melody is revealed. This then builds into a climactic high point of the melody played in the cello. Throughout the ending, fragments of the beginning texture fade in and out until one final build up resembling the beginning texture. There is then a flurry of notes that then proceed to do the slowing down process of the beginning but within a much quicker timespan and then the piece closes out on the final chord of that process.

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