Composition Commons^™

Colors Of Love: A Story Ballet, Spencer Roberts

Music Theses and Dissertations

Colors of Love is a two-act ballet scored for chamber orchestra. The work is influenced by both jazz and classical musical styles, representing two distinct sound worlds that work together to create the whole. The instrumentation and the melodic content of the score reflects the cultural, racial, emotional, and physical turmoil that plagues society; the goal of this thesis is to bring these issues to light through the juxtaposition of jazz and classical music.

John Williams: Scoring And Interpreting Emotions In Film Music, Hadlee Lane Hubbard

Senior Honors Theses

This research paper examines how John Williams’s film scores convey an emotional narrative to the audience. First, the literature review will discuss pertinent theories on film music and emotions informing the current research. The paper then establishes Williams’s composing style, and centers on his connection to the classical symphonic composers and to the film music of the Golden Age of Hollywood. The research then analyzes how John Williams’s music influences emotions in prominent scenes from several of his films including Jurassic Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and The Empire Strikes Back. Finally, the paper concludes with a …

Fungal Chapel, Gabrielle Joy Cerberville

Masters Theses

FUNGAL CHAPEL is an interactive installation exploring the ties between people and place through the deconstructed visual language of Judeo-Christian religious iconography. Comprising five sculptures; BELFRY, OFFERTORY, BAPTISMAL, DOORWAY, and ALTAR, visitors are encouraged to interact on multiple levels of physical touch and consciousness, including pouring water, self-expression through writing, interacting with sonified fungal biodata, meditation, and offering and receiving gifts. Most of the objects in the chapel are “sounding sculptures” hooked up to contact microphones with added effects, and can be manipulated to produce a variety of musical sounds. Through the process of semi-guided ritual as an individual moves …

Inclusion Initiative Composition, Thomas Langan

Assignment Prompts

You will compose a short piece that is inspired by your vision of a more inclusive and just future, or illuminates a path that will lead there. This will be a multi-track, multi-instrument composition using MIDI, synthesis, audio, and sampling using the DAW of your choosing. The composition must use processing and effects and be mixed for balance, stereo spread, and depth. Projects must include source material, original synth patches, sampler instruments, and originally recorded audio tracks.

A Festival Of Form: Score, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

"A Festival of Form" was both an event at Bridwell and Perkins School of Theology and a conceptual piece of music that lasted several days. In this rendering, the "piece of music" was articulated in a fluid combination of activities that included works by other composers, including John Cage. The activities involved--from lectures, conversations, and meals to actual performances of both short works and especially the world-record breaking rendition of "Organ2/ASLSP" played by Christopher Anderson--comprise the entirety of "A Festival of Form" as performance piece. The challenge of this work is that unlike nearly any other music, it is purposely …

Broken Chair Chaconne, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

In March 2022, I was working at my computer when this increasingly rickety chair collapsed beneath me! It was time to get back to responsible eating and get a new chair. But amid the intensive planning and production of The Festival of Form: John Cage and the Infinite Human events, it occurred to me that I could play around with the ideas of music, sound, noise, and silence, and particularly the unconventional experiments of notation and scoring. Shortly after this chair broke, I took a sharpie pen to it and began to notate it like a score, along with some …

De Profundis: Deep Personal Grief Precipitates Musical Masterpieces, Karen A. Demol

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

A Bird’S Eye View: Large-Scale Tonal Structures In Robert Schumann’S Four Song Cycles (Op. 42, 24, 39, And 48), Peter Kramer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Some of Robert Schumann’s most notable works are his Lieder for solo voice and piano accompaniment. Schumann's Lieder are considered some of the best compositions in this genre, engendering various interpretations by performers and exciting vigorous debate among musicologists and theorists. Robert Schumann’s early music was almost entirely composed for the piano alone; it wasn’t until 1840 that he started to compose almost exclusively Lieder and song cycles inspired by his predecessors Beethoven and Schubert. This was a prolific year for Schumann compositionally, in part due to his marriage to Clara Schumann who was one of Europe’s most preeminent piano …

Strength And Vulnerability In Maurice Ravel’S Sonata For Violin And Cello And Osvaldo Golijov’S Mariel For Cello And Marimba: An Analysis Through Performance And Composition, Andrea Casarrubios

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In order to “stimulate more ambitious performances,” as David Lewin writes in his Studies in Music with Text, this dissertation is meant to provide new perspectives into two preexisting works, Maurice Ravel’s Sonate pour Violon et Violoncelle, and Osvaldo Golijov’s Mariel for cello and marimba, through the active making of two original compositions written for similar instrumentations, La Libertad se levantó llorando for violin and cello, and Speechless for cello and percussion. Taking Lewin’s proposition into consideration, I share performance insights and discuss how the creation of these new compositions have influenced my interpretations of the two respective …

2019 Overture, Philip H. Garcia

Theses and Dissertations

Composed for the Hunter Symphony Orchestra Call for Scores.

To Launch A Thousand Ships, Daniel Silva

Theses and Dissertations

Inspired by Madeline Miller’s novel The Song of Achilles (2012), To Launch a Thousand Ships is a four-movement orchestral piece that depicts the story of Achilles and the Trojan War.

Guide To The Doug Lofstrom Music Collection, College Archives & Special Collections

Collection Guides / Finding Aids

A composer and bassist whose scores reflect his involvement in theater, dance, film and symphonic music, Doug Lofstrom also formed The New Quartet, a chamber ensemble which performs original music and arrangements, Trillium, and, most recently, joined the group The Last Word. He was composer-in-residence for the Metropolis Symphony Orchestra and musical director of Chicago's Free Street Theatre before joining the faculty of Columbia College Chicago’s Music Department.

Russell Shenton: “Men Of Steel”, Ryan Kelly , Editor

Applied Music Faculty Publications & Performances

F. Russell Shenton was born in Pottstown, PA in 1894. He worked for a time at Lukens Steel in Coatesville, PA before forging a career in music. He studied music at Millersville State Normal School (now Millersville University, PA) for two years before enlisting in the army during World War I, where he served from 1917-1919 in the 316 Infantry, 79th Division, beginning as a Bugler and completing his service with the rank of Musician 1st Class. He earned a Victory Medal for his service in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. Following his discharge, he continued studying music at West Chester State …

Psalm Cycle, Andrew Lenko

West Chester University Master’s Theses

“Psalm Cycle” is a collection of Psalms set to music and inspired by a season of studying the life of David, the primary Psalmist. Each Psalm was picked for its vantage point in David’s life and specific themes, striving for parity. Formally, the work is like a song cycle in that the various movements are connected through their authorship and place in David’s story, while resembling a cantata in that it can be performed in a worship service. As the project took shape, I diverged musically from either form’s constraints and allowed myself to interpret the text with my own …

The Goat: Rescoring A Buster Keaton Classic, Shannon Bradley

West Chester University Master’s Theses

This thesis examines Buster Keaton’s The Goat (1921) and provides insight into the methods used to rescore the music of this classic silent film. After a brief review of Keaton’s life and career, I will discuss each step in the process of understanding this film and determining the best methods of implementing music to enhance the film. This process includes creating detailed spotting notes for each scene, sketching most of the central musical themes using my preferred traditional composition software, Sibelius, and finally transferring this musical information into my preferred digital audio workstation, Logic, in order to sync all aspects …

“I’M Sorry”: An Original Song For Voice And Chordal Accompaniment, Lauren T. Steadman, Nolan Stolz

University of South Carolina Upstate Student Research Journal

Below is an original song written for mezzo-soprano voice and accompaniment. The purpose of this article is to provide information on the songwriting process that I used by discussing the melody, harmony, and lyrics and showing how they were developed and completed.

This article discusses and defines musical terms for musicians and non-musicians alike to show why certain decisions were made. I begin by discussing the lyrics of the song and their meaning. I will reference methods included in J. Perricone’s book Great Songwriting Techniques to discuss how the chords and melodies relate to the lyrics.

The song is notated …

Constructing A Cultural Bridge: The Compositional Approach And International Impact Of Albert Mangelsdorff’S Now Jazz Ramwong, Michael Desousa

Theses and Dissertations--Music

In the period following World War II, countries such as Japan, Vietnam, and Thailand were under constant intellectual bombardment from global superpowers vying for political influence. West Germany, a newly established ally of Western democracy, was a small part of a global effort to spread this democracy to Asia. Working alongside Joachim-Ernst Berendt and the Goethe Institute, the jazz trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff arranged an album which sought to merge both Western European and Asian music. The album, Now Jazz Ramwong (1964), and accompanying fifty-concert tour helped pioneer a lasting cultural connection between Western Europe and Asia. The methodology behind Now …

The Psalmodia Project, Saulo Moura

Theses and Dissertations--Music

The Psalmodia Project is a set of twelve compositions based on the text of preselected psalms from the Bible. The book of Psalms, part of the wisdom literature section of the Biblical Canon, is a kaleidoscope of human emotions with a total of 150 poems describing ancient Hebrew stories of faith full of plot nuances easily represented by musical expression. The compositions cover a large variety of musical genres, from Latin jazz to classical music, from small to large ensembles, with an instrumentation that employs sounds from all five different instrumental families: keyboards, strings, percussion (pitched and non-pitched), woodwinds, and …

A Renaissance: The Absurd Retelling Of Mostly True Events, Erica R. Hitzman

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Throughout the following you will be taken on a fantastical retelling of the exhibition A Renaissance, and some of what lead up to it. Through the eyes of various shifting perspectives you will explore the relationships between the artist, her art, and the viewer in the hopes of unveiling how the work plays into feminist theory, its place in the Zeitgeist, and the motivations behind it. Each perspective is formatted differently, to visually mirror the shift in perspective. Presented in the first person and aligned to the right, the account of the artist discusses the process, emotion, and inspiration behind …

Architone•Ics: The Music Of Architecture — Music As An Entry Point For Understanding Architectural Design, Deborah J. Oakley, Diego Vega

Creative Collaborations

Architecture and Music share many fundamental concepts in common. German polymath Goethe famously described architecture as “frozen music.” Numerous renowned architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Kahn among others, were also accomplished musicians and wrote of the connections between the two disciplines. A particularly noteworthy example of overlapping and crossing boundaries is the Greco-French composer Iannas Xenakis. Regarded as an influential figure in late 20th century avant-garde music, his first education and occupation, was actually as a structural engineer for famed architect LeCorbusier. He later practiced architecture himself before focusing on music composition, for which he is better known. …