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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Engaging With The Score: Wadada Leo Smith, Graphic Notation, And The Performer’S Perspective, Kennedy Taylor Dixon Dec 2021

Engaging With The Score: Wadada Leo Smith, Graphic Notation, And The Performer’S Perspective, Kennedy Taylor Dixon

Masters Theses

As a Composer/Performer, my work exists in both realms. This thesis reflects the principle that my experience as a violist influences my compositional process and vice versa. Since identifying under both artistic skill sets, it has become evident that the two areas that exist as a creative and presentational output, thrive off one another’s success.

In June 2019, I had the chance to play Wadada Leo Smith’s String Quartet No. 3: Black Church, The First World Gathering of the Spirit (1995) at the Nief-Norf Summer Festival. This encounter was the first time I interacted with graphically notated scores as a …


Common Ground, Cody Christopher-Park Ray May 2021

Common Ground, Cody Christopher-Park Ray

Masters Theses

Common Ground is a work that explores ideals of unity through the shared awareness of human mortality. I wrote the majority of this work during the COVID-19 pandemic in the fall of 2020. Throughout this period, including the summer leading up to it, political and social tension was felt throughout the country. This sentiment stemmed from the unjust killings of unarmed people of color at the hands of law enforcement, to blatant errors in the way political figures handled the spread of this newfound disease, leading to more than 400k civilians prematurely dead. In experiencing these external pressures, I found …


Compositions For 0 Or 1 Performers, Rodrigo Valente Pascale May 2021

Compositions For 0 Or 1 Performers, Rodrigo Valente Pascale

Masters Theses

This thesis includes a collection of pieces composed for 0 or 1 performers – unaccompanied solo, solo and electronics or fixed media. The compositions for solo instruments include “Unnest” for bassoon solo, premièred by Ariane Petri during the V Congress of Music and Mathematics in 2020, and “Assemblage” for baritone saxophone solo, premièred by Erin Rogers in 2020. “Reizantwort” is a composition for viola and electronics which was first recorded by Laura Parra in summer 2020. Finally, "Discontinuous Mediation I" and "Discontinuous Mediation II" are fixed media compositions that were composed in Summer 2020 and Spring 2021, respectively. This collection …