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Some of the material in is restricted to members of the community. By logging in, you may be able to gain additional access to certain collections or items. If you have questions about access or logging in, please use the form on the Contact Page.
During my time in Tallahassee, Florida, I witnessed several severe hurricanes as well as tropical storms. Perhaps the worst one was hurricane Michael. I was at home listening to the sounds outside, and I felt truly terrified as I watched...
The examination of multimedia compositions by minimalist composers demands the analysis of not only the music, but also the visual and narrative domains. While there are many ways of addressing the music, there are relatively few methods...
Four Movements in Search of a Composer draws inspiration from the play Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello. Rather than a character sketch of the six Characters in this play, this piece centers around four moments...
The discrete Fourier transform (DFT) has recently gained traction as a music-theoretic and music analyticaltool, providing a mathematically robust way of modeling various musical phenomena. I examine both local and large-scale harmonic...
This treatise surveys a selection of concertos for double bass published since 1970. The concertos have been classified in terms of musical styles, performance approaches, instrumental techniques, and level of difficulty. The document...
Many musical compositions from the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century retain some elements of functional tonality but abandon others. Most analytical methods are designed to address either tonal...
Convergence for Orchestra is a symphonic work based upon the juxtaposition of two dissimilar musical ideas and their development in a series of complex formal sections. The word convergence can imply a combination of two or more elements...
A major difficulty in the study of fugue is the diversity found among fugues. Nineteenth-century formal structures do not apply adequately to fugue beyond a general three-part structure: exposition, departure from tonic, return to tonic....
All analysis is subjective, but certain methodologies focus on more positivistic aspects of music, or sometimes give a sense of objectivity by virtue of being widely accepted or deemed rigorous. This dissertation explores the opposite...
This dissertation examines the compositions of the American progressive metal band Dream Theater from a music-theoretical perspective. Specifically, this project identifies the primary stylistic elements the band employs in its...
Combining influences from western and oriental elements always fascinates composers who benefit from diverse musical cultures. TongQu is a large-ensemble piece for the Chinese instrument Zheng and eleven performers. The charm of Chinese...
This study analyses the structural role of orchestration in small and large forms. Orchestration's influence is examined by applying Robert S. Hatten's expressive genre theory specifically in its use of marked and unmarked events...
Electronic Dance Music (EDM), a musical genre left relatively unexplored in music theory offers music theorists numerous exciting opportunities for analytical inquiry. This paper focuses on the rhythms and formal structures encountered...
This composition is written for a sinfonietta-type ensemble (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, viola, cello, bass, and percussion), taking into consideration performance limitations caused by the pandemic. It commemorates the...
A remarkable period of percussion composition began in 1950, when Paul Price established the first collegiate percussion ensemble at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Coinciding with the era of serialism and experimentalism...
When standing between two mirrors, a person will see ever smaller copies of his or her own image extending ad infinitum. "Mise en abyme, which literally means placed into abyss, is a formal technique in which an image is duplicated,...
A quintessential example of the synthesis of Taiwanese and Western musical elements can be found in the Zheng Concerto--Dots, Lines, and Convergence by Chihchun Chi-Sun Lee.
mix/match is a multi-movement work for orchestra and its subset instrument groups. As such, some movements can be performed by string orchestras or wind ensembles. This composition is also designed for concert programmers, conductors, ...
Road to Damascus for Piano and Orchestra is based on the story of the Apostle Paul's repentance and conversion to Christianity. This dramatic event is one of the most inspirational in the New Testament. Also, through this momentous story...
This study explores the pitch and rhythmic content of the melodies of Frank Zappa. It also describes the relationship between Zappa's melodies and their harmonic climates. Three pieces are analyzed in detail. The analysis of the guitar...
The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra was inspired by the works of Sergey Prokofiev, Bela Bartok, and Maurice Ravel, and explores some of the compositional devices of twentieth century music, including serialism, modality, polytonality, ...
The search for unity, structure, or large-scale coherence in post-tonal music has preoccupied music theorists for many decades. In this dissertation, I present a different approach that focuses on striking moments of juxtaposition in...
Desirae, a chamber opera in one act, is named after its protagonist, a 26-year-old artist struggling to acknowledge her full identity. In an effort to make peace with this, she begins a quest for clarity by entering into three very...
Voices of the Earth was the composer’s first large-scale work attempting to interweave musical styles from across global history with natural soundscapes, combing natural and primordial sounds (like thunder, rockfalls, and animal calls)...
Diptych for Chamber Orchestra was conceived as a two-part work. As an item, a diptych consists of two panels hinged together; in similar fashion, the movements of this work, though contrary in overall character, are related as part of...
This dissertation explores the role of musical process in four postminimalist works composed by Michael Torke. Close readings of "The Blue Pages, Rapture, Four Proverbs, and Book of Proverbs show a variety of ways in which process can...
Sum Of Our Secrets is a piece that exists on multiple levels. The conception of this piece occurred on February 2nd, 2014, when I heard of the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman and subsequently read Tom Junod's article "Philip Seymour...
Seeds of Hope, written for nay (Middle Eastern flute), oud (Middle Eastern lute), and western orchestra, is an attempt at synthesizing two different musical traditions into a single cohesive work. The musical traditions that are...
Iconography, in its technical sense as sacred art, is not an act of individual creativity or personal self-expression. The iconographer must follow established forms and conventions in order for the work to function as an icon....
Trio for Clarinet, Bassoon and Piano is a three movement piece which utilizes aspects of sonata form. As a woodwind player myself, I took special care to write idiomatically for the clarinet and bassoon. The role of the piano is much...
My inital idea for this piece came from the simple concept of marrying electronics and live instruments. This is something I have heard done before but that I never had attempted myself. I have also wanted to musically represent the Big...
As a native of Taiwan, Szu-Yu Chen often combines influences from western and eastern culture in her music. In her compositions, the charm of Chinese music shimmers on the surface, while the foundation resonates with European and...
Many flutists believe that the romantic period saw a decline in music for their instrument. One purpose of this document is to republish Louise Farrenc's Trio in E minor for Flute, Cello and Piano, Op. 45 in an attempt to add quality...
This analytic dissertation explores tragic and ironic narratives in post-1945 orchestral works through the lens of musical agency and critical theory. For the purposes of this study, I define musical narrative as any sequencing of...
The purpose of this project was to develop motivating and appropriate teaching materials to build student memorization skills. These pedagogical materials are inspired by related literature in psychology and piano pedagogy and supported...
Urban Caricatures is a collection of portraits that reveal the gritty, hyper-realistic phenomena that dwell in urban settings. Here they are redrawn in a manner that augment their original sentiment. Their theatrical auras are exposed...
(im)Balanced is a twenty-minute work for piano, winds and percussion. Though the ensemble is larger than a chamber work, the sparse texture of one instrument on a part creates the intimacy of chamber music while still allowing for large...
The notion of this piece came about through the fusion of a wide number of influences. First and foremost is my love for, and practical experience with, music that makes use of the electric guitar. I wanted to transform the guitar's role...
Less than a decade ago, I was convinced that I would pursue a career not in music, but in genetics. Science had long been an important part of my life, and despite a change in career plans, biology has remained an important part of my...
I had been wanting to write a bizarre piece for solo piano using a lot of pianist. This inspiration comes to me when I was watching a concert at Mahidol University, Thailand during a piano duet concert which I cannot fully remember who...
Elliott Carter's recent chamber music miniatures have been afforded much analytical attention, but comparable studies on his late orchestral compositions are rare; literature that does address Carter's symphonic pieces tends to focus on...
This dissertation includes an exploration of the ways in which various chromatic excursions interact with structural (i.e., prolongational) processes in selected works by Richard Strauss. I classify certain kinds of chromatic passages...
This dissertation explores three aspects of Songs of Innocence and of Experience: the contrary states of Innocence and Experience, the diverse stylistic juxtapositions, and the interaction of the music, text, and visual elements. An...
This dissertation examines sections of Richard Wagner's final opera, Parsifal, using both Neo-Riemannian theory and Schenkerian analysis. The Neo-Riemannian discussion is primarily concerned with the creation of an inclusive model...
When deciding what to write for my master’s thesis at Florida State University, I was inspired to compose a piece based on my Finnish heritage mainly because of a recent award I had received through the Finlandia Foundation. Originally, ...
Cri de coeur is French for "cry from the heart, and indeed this work has an expressive intensity previously unseen (so far as I can tell) in my oeuvre. It would be cheap for me to say that this work, composed in the autumn of 2021, is a...
Some of the material in is restricted to members of the community. By logging in, you may be able to gain additional access to certain collections or items. If you have questions about access or logging in, please use the form on the Contact Page.
