Composition Commons^™

Voyages D'Hiver ("Winter Travels"), Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

Between mid-January and late March 2022, these twenty-four preludes for solo piano were written as an exercise to portray the various changes in the seasons and the world, which is constantly in flux. They reflect travels by the composer, as well as reflections on current events and of cultural and arts events hosted at SMU during March ("the Festival of Form"), which provided insight and reconsideration of sound, time, and space. Many of the pieces are studies in contrast, especially the contrast in volume, tonality, and harmony. The preludes are also inspired by and written for the wonderful community of …

Jeremy Lee In A Student Composers Recital, Jeremy Lee

Honors Thesis

This recital and collection of original sheet music represent the culminating work for senior Music major (Contemporary Styles and Practices concentration) Jeremy Lee at Loyola Marymount University. The program features a selection of musical compositions that encapsulate different styles, genres, and unique compositional devices. Pieces also utilize a variety of arrangements and mediums, including compositions for multiple instruments and for film. Program notes for the included selections describe the historical influences and/or the personal stories and inspirations behind each piece. Performed live on April 21^st, 2022, in Murphy Recital Hall.

The Sounds Of Home: A Composition Portfolio, Paul Gabriel L. Cosme

Music Honors Projects

What does home sound like? I have spent most of my recent life outside my homeland, the Philippines, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, and this question of what home is has become a persistent thought, if not, a necessary inquiry. This composition portfolio attempts to answer that question in three varying pieces. The first, The Sounds of Home, is a string quartet in three movements where each one tells a personal story by invoking Filipino folk and indigenous themes. The second, Commuting in Manila, is a wind septet that sonically emulates the commuting experience in Manila from the …

Sound For The Cinema: A Senior Composition Recital By Lindsay Dills, Lindsay Dills

Honors Theses

Sounds for the Cinema involves the exploration of all elements encompassing the creation of film within one composition recital. Pieces were written with the intention of pursuing effective storytelling in writing the music, sound design, foley sound art, and directing videography. Every composition explores different facets of the filmmaking experience. The Batman, Spring, and Lord of the Rings: Two Towers are all rescorings opening the recital showcase to exhibit how altering the music of an already created scene can change the entire tone of a movie. Following this, the composition utilizing a clip from Antman and the Wasp …

2021-2022 New Music Festival, Lisa Leonard, John Harbison

New Music Festival

The 16th Annual New Music Festival

• John Harbison, Composer-in-Residence
• Lisa Leonard, Director

Friday, April 15, 2022

• Spotlight 1: Emerging Composers

Saturday, April 16, 2022

• Masterclass with John Harbison

Sunday, April 17, 2022

• Spotlight 2: The Art of John Harbison

Bassoon Concerto: Color & Light, Aaron Alonso Gonzalez

LSU Master's Theses

The Bassoon Concerto: Color & Light, is about light, color, childhood, introspection, and the sense of freedom that one may experience in the spectrum of life. The first movement is about the light in the goodness of all humanity. The second movement is about being lost in color, trying to find its path back to the light. The last movement is about finding the light again in the brushstrokes of an aurora. An aurora is a Spanish word that, according to the Royal Spanish Academy dictionary, is a rose-colored light that immediately precedes sunrise and the beginning or early stages …

New Transcription For Cello And Piano Of The “Sonata For Violin And Piano” By Uruguayan Composer Hector Tosar, Including A Performance Edition, Analysis, And Biography, Jose Pedro Romero-Ottonello

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This paper accompanies my transcription for cello and piano of Héctor Alberto Tosar Herrecart’s Sonata for Violin and Piano. It presents a brief study of Tosar's life, documenting his study with various composers in Uruguay and elsewhere, influences on his evolving compositional style, and an analysis of the sonata itself. I examine the manuscripts of other works by Tosar to provide an understanding of his musical language, including his “Serie sinfónica: en cuatro movimientos,” “Sinfonía no. 2 para orquesta de cuerdas,” “Sonatina no. 2. Solitude,” and “Salmo CII: para coro y orquesta.” The purpose of this project is to document …

A Synthesis Of Contemporary Music Composition Pedagogy Practices For The Undergraduate And Graduate Level Sequences, And An Exploration Of Time, Sound, And Space: An Aleatoric Event Score In Collaboration With The Lsu Museum Of Art, Jeremi Wayne Edwards

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation consists of two parts. The first part consists of a synthesis of contemporary music composition pedagogy practices for the undergraduate and graduate level sequences. A conversation of the study of music composition pedagogy is used to investigate current pedagogical practices in music composition and present those findings as a resource guide for new and future teachers. The second part presents an Exploration of Time, Sound, and Space, an Aleatoric Event Score Collaboration with the LSU Museum of Art. This event score is a product of the development of this dissertation commenced with a straightforward question; can we experience/consume …

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 …

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.

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 …

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.

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 …

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 …

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.