Music Theory Commons^™

From “Northern Lights” To “The Ground”: A Stylistic Survey Of The Choral Works Of Ola Gjeilo, Steven Brown

EURēCA: Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement

This research provides a stylistic survey of contemporary choral composer Ola Gjeilo’s compositional style. Using formal and harmonic analyses of several of Gjeilo’s most notable pieces, this research dissects Gjeilo’s treatment of text, his use of tertian relationships, his consistency in formal designs, and his use of polytonal and polyfunctional relationships. Multi-parametric analyses of Gjeilo’s works reveal the characteristics of his music. This research deconstructs Gjeilo’s approach to text painting, which portrays the broader idea of a text and exploits its coloristic elements. In addition to text, this research demonstrates Gjeilo’s consistent devotion to the number three through tripartite forms …