Composition Commons^™

A Mixed Methods Study Of The Process Of Commissioning New Music For Choirs, Kyle Justin Brazell

Dissertations

This study provided an in-depth look at the commissioning process for choral music. The pursuit of new music has a storied tradition in western culture, deeply connected with the Catholic church, starting in the medieval era. In modern times, there is a substantial amount of research on commissioning new music. However, most of the existing research is focused on band and orchestra ensembles, with very few exploring choral music commissions. Using a mixed methods design, this study identified a process for pursuing new music for choral ensembles and measured attitudes and perceptions of the director and composer during the commissioning …

Brighter Days, Erich J. Eastman

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Brighter Days is a musical composition for choir, solo voice, and guitar, depicting the stages of an emotional journey through five separate movements. Each movement represents a different set of feelings, exploring themes of frustration, perseverance, hope, elation, and other sentiments. The movements are interconnected, employing key relationships and cross-references throughout the work. Musical styles vary, and genres are blended to create tonal landscapes that are both unique and accessible. Brighter Days is an expressive new work about finding light in darkness and coming to terms with oneself.

Monarch Butterflies, Ralph Mendoza

Theses and Dissertations

This piece is a continuation of capturing my experience from my trip to Paraguay. This first part, of a three part movement, attempts to describe the beginning relationship between Human and Nature. This piece focuses on the feeling of tranquility, anxiousness and destruction.

Incorporating Activism Into Contemporary Music: An Analysis Of A Composition Portfolio, Mary Walsh

Theses and Dissertations--Music

An original music composition portfolio featuring White Coral, a composition for wind ensemble and tape, Cataclysm, a composition for bass trombone, tuba, and tape, Protest, a composition for chamber ensemble with text by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Mother of Men, a composition for chamber ensemble with text by Ida Couch Hazlett, The Blue Hour a composition for wind quintet, and Jerusalem a composition for a cappella voices.

The Temple Of Immensity: For Choir And Electronics, Steven Naylor

Honors Projects

the temple of immensity is a composition for 16-part choir and fixed media electronics composed by Steven Naylor using astronomical data concerning the stars nearest to Earth and their properties. “The temple of immensity” is an archaic and rarely used term, defined as “the universe or the complete overhead expanse of the heavens, especially as conceived as an object of religious reverence.” This piece seeks to convey feelings of wonder and awe for outer space through the setting of an original self-composed poem and through the use of star data to determine musical aspects. The resulting 28-minute composition blends voices …

Missa Brevis, Eunwha Kang

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Missa Brevis is a twenty-minute composition for mixed choir, horn, trumpet, and trombone. Because the piece is a “short mass,” it consists of only four movements, leaving out the Credo. It is composed more concisely than a general mass. The Mass is centered on the note E, and each movement is based on a different scale. The inspiration for this work came from composers of various historical periods and geographical regions. Elements of traditional South Korean music, as well as Neoclassical music elements similar to those found in the music of Paul Hindemith and Igor Stravinsky are incorporated throughout …

Sacred Song Sisters: Choral And Solo Vocal Church Music By Women Composers For The Lenten Revised Common Lectionary, Lisa Elliott

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This document explores sacred music by women composers for the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) of the Catholic and Christian churches. The study researches exclusively choral and vocal solo music by women composers for the church season of Lent. Other primary limitations include music in English, and music from the nineteenth century to the present. The main question answered in this document is: what sacred music has been published by women composers that may be programmed in church services?

This question is answered in the included appendices. These appendices list the music by women composers appropriate for the specific RCL readings …

A Conductor's Guide To Amass By Jocelyn Hagen, Matthew J. Myers

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Contemporary American composer Jocelyn Hagen grew up in Valley City, North Dakota, where she found an early love for singing, playing instruments, and composing. After completing degrees at St. Olaf College and the University of Minnesota, Hagen began a career as a full-time composer. Her appointment as Composer-in-Residence for The Singers led to her first major multimovement work, amass (2011).

Though Hagen planned to write a traditional setting of the Catholic Mass, she struggled to accept the text of the “Credo” as the only path to salvation. Thus, she substituted spiritual poems from a variety of faith traditions to create …

From Choir To Band: Analysis And Application Of Adaptation Techniques As Demonstrated In Works By Whitacre, Ticheli, And Johnson, Deshmond D. Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the adaptation techniques of composers Frank Ticheli and Eric Whitacre. As a means for that exploration, it includes an original choral work by the author as well as a band transcription that was done using adaptation techniques found in the Ticheli and Whitacre pieces. The application of those techniques sheds new light on the subject of band transcriptions by showing a variety of possible approaches. Musicians, conductors, and composers will be able to use these materials to enhance the composition and performance of a choral work and its band transcription.

Missa Gloriæ Patris (Score Sample), Alexander Seefeldt

All College Thesis Program, 2016-2019

Missa Gloriæ Patris is a Latin mass setting in four movements for SATB choir and organ. The complete score is 55 pages long, and the full piece runs just over 25 minutes. Included here are first pages of each movement, as well as a companion paper, recordings of two of the pieces, and a worship aid from the premiere of the piece.

Requiem For Orchestra And Choir, Luciano Vaz Correa

LSU Master's Theses

Five Movements of a Requiem is a composition for orchestra, solo soprano, solo alto, solo tenor, solo bass and choir, and is approximately 20 minutes in length. To compose it, I’ve studied many different requiem masses from Renaissance polyphony to our days, works from Tomás Luis de Victoria’s Missa Pro Defunctis to Schnittke’s Requiem. In this study, I’ve tried to understand which techniques they used in their compositions, and how these techniques could be useful on helping me to express my own music. In Christian liturgy, Requiem masses are offered for the dead and the name is derived from the …

Airiños: For Orchestra And Two-Part Women's Choir, And A Biography Of The Poet Rosalía De Castro, Scott T. Stobbe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Spanish poet Rosalía de Castro was a central figure in the Galician

cultural and literary revival of the mid nineteenth-century. One of her most

significant books is Cantares Gallegos, a book of poems written in Galician that

serves as an homage to the language, culture, customs and countryside of

Galicia. The text for the musical portion of this document, a work for orchestra

with extended percussion and two-part women’s choir entitled Airiños, comes

from Castro’s poem Airiños, airiños, aires which was featured in Cantares

Gallegos. To gain a deeper understanding of the author’s importance and

influence in Galicia and …

The Bended Tree, Graeme Shields

Masters Theses

The Bended Tree is a multi-movement, 40-minute cantata for chorus, organ, piano, flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet, violin, and percussion. It explores timbral, textural, and harmonic development within loosely a symmetrical form divided in the center by 30 seconds of silence. The text for the cantata stems from a series of Lutheran hymns and Biblical passages, set to original music.

In the interest of facilitating flexibility for performances, the movements are written so that they can be performed individually, in any subset, or in the piece’s entirety. The instrumentation is also variable: the core ensemble is comprised of chorus, piano, and …

Tu Lo Sai | 10-96190, James Q. Mulholland

Music Faculty Scores

Tu Lo Sai

Part Number: 10-96190

Price: $1.80

Voicing: TTBB

Transcription By: Piero Floridia

Music By: Giuseppe Torelli

Arranged By: James Q. Mulholland

Commissioned by the "Singing Statesmen"University of Wisconsin-Eau ClaireGary Schwartkoff, director

And I Will Sing A Lullaby | 20-95750, Robert I. Hugh, Henry Leck

Music Faculty Scores

And I Will Sing a Lullaby

Part Number:
20-95750

Price:
$1.85

Voicing:
Two-Part Treble

Lyrics By:
William Blake & Thomas Dekker

Music By:
Robert I. Hugh

Edited By:
Henry Leck

Featured at:
2016 TCDA Convention
2016 KCDA Summer Conference

Branch Of May, A - Ttbb | 41-96550, James Q. Mulholland

Music Faculty Scores

A Branch of May (I Brought You Here)

Part Number: 41-96550

Voicing: TTBB

Lyrics By: Tradition May-Day Song

Music By: James Q. Mulholland

Branch Of May, A - Satb | 10-96020, James Q. Mulholland

Music Faculty Scores

A Branch of May (I Brought You Here)

Part Number: 10-96020

Voicing: SATB & Treble

Lyrics By: Tradition May-Day Song

Music By: James Q. Mulholland

Composing/Arranging Familiar Songs In Choir With Garageband, Brent C. Talbot

Sunderman Conservatory of Music Faculty Publications

This practical multi-stage project description demonstrates to teachers how they can engage students in arranging and composing music related to the choral curriculum by using Digital Audio Workstations (DAW) like GarageBand.

A Jamaican Voice: The Choral Music Of Noel Dexter, Desmond A. Moulton

Dissertations

As we approach the twenty-first century, the world generally is moving away from the dominance of the European aesthetic towards a world music that owes much to the musical resources of the African-American tradition. Jamaica’s social and philosophical music belong mainly to that tradition, which includes the use of rhythms, and timbral and melodic resources that exist independently of harmony. Already in this century, Jamaicans have created two totally new music - Nyabinghi, which performs a philosophical function and Reggae, which performs a social function. The choral music of Noel Dexter is important because it is uniquely Jamaican/Caribbean in its …

Of Seasons Have I Sung, Charlie Leftridge

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

This cantata is comprised of seven movements: versus i. the willows (SATB double choir, SSAA antiphonal soli and string quartet); versus ii. we once were (SA and string quartet); versus iii. when at night I see the sky (tenor solo and string quartet); versus iv. of seasons have I sung (unaccompanied SSAATTBB choir); versus v. if you should ask me (soprano solo and string quartet); versus vi. I once was (TB and string quartet); versus vii. in paradisum (SATB double choir, SSAA antiphonal soli and string quartet). The text set to music is the original poetry of the composer. This …

May Peace Be With You: Alleluia | 10-96030, James Q. Mulholland

Music Faculty Scores

May Peace Be With You: Alleluia, for SSAA Voices with Violincello and Piano

Part Number:
10-96030

Price:
$1.85

Voicing:
SSAA

Lyrics By:
Paraphrased from Phillipians 4:8,9

Music By:
James Q. Mulholland

with Optional Violincello (part included)

Commissioned by colleagues and students of Nancy Leisl, choral director at Connor High School
To honor all of the things she has taught us.

Sleep, My Loved One | 16-96750, Christopher Matthews

Music Faculty Scores

Sleep, My Loved One (Sleep and Dream of Me)

Part Number:
16-96750

Price:
$1.80

Voicing:
SATB

Lyrics By:
Nixon Waterman (1859-1944)

Music By:
Christopher Matthews

a cappella

Featured at:
2015 National ACDA Convention
2015 Atlanta Summer Conducting Institute
2015 Rodney Eichenberger Summer Conductor's Clinic
2015 ICDA Summer Conference

Softness Of My Mother's Hands, The - Satb | 20-96235, John Starr Alexander, Henry Leck

Music Faculty Scores

The Softness of My Mother's Hands

Part Number:
20-96235

Price:
$1.90

Voicing:
SATB

Lyrics By:
John Starr Alexander

Music By:
John Starr Alexander

Edited By:
Henry Leck

Featured at:
2015 Atlanta Summer Conducting Institute

Snowflakes Fantasy | 20-95760, Hyun Kook, Henry Leck

Music Faculty Scores

Snowflakes Fantasy

Part Number:
20-95760

Price:
$1.90

Voicing:
SATB

Lyrics By:
Linda Marcus & Julie I. Myers

Music By:
Hyun Kook

Edited By:
Henry Leck

with Optional Triangle and Bell Tree

Snowflakes Fantasy Percussion Part | 20-95761, Hyun Kook, Henry Leck

Music Faculty Scores

Snowflakes Fantasy

Part Number:
20-95760

Price:
$5.50

Voicing:
Percussion Parts

Music By:
Hyun Kook

Edited By:
Henry Leck Triangle and Bell Tree

I Shall Not Live In Vain | 16-96760, Christopher Matthews

Music Faculty Scores

I Shall Not Live in Vain (Three Choral Fugues)

Part Number:
16-96760

Price:
$1.85

Voicing:
SATB

Lyrics By:
Emily Dickinson

Music By:
Christopher Matthews

a cappella

Dear Friends Farewell | 10-96065, James Q. Mulholland

Music Faculty Scores

Dear Friends Farewell, Appalachian Folk Song for SATB Voices with Piano Accompaniment

Part Number:
10-96065

Price:
$1.75

Voicing:
SATB

Lyrics By:
Traditional

Music By:
Traditional

Arranged By:
James Q. Mulholland

Composed for the Berea College Concert Choir, Berea, KY
Stephen C. Bolster, conductor (2014)

Featured at:
2014 Rodney Eichenberger Conductor's Clinic

Christmas Lullaby-Satb | 10-96055, James Q. Mulholland

Music Faculty Scores

Christmas Lullaby (Away in the Manger)

Part Number:
10-96055

Price:
$1.75

Voicing:
SATB

Arranged By:
James Q. Mulholland

Also Available in SA

Featured at:
2015 ACDA Convention
2015 Atlanta Summer Conducting Institute

Christmas Lullaby-Sa | 10-96050, James Q. Mulholland

Music Faculty Scores

Christmas Lullaby (Away in the Manger)

Part Number:
10-96050

Price:
$1.75

Voicing:
Treble (Univson S/A)

Arranged By:
James Q. Mulholland

Also Available in SATB

Featured at:
2015 TCDA Convention

If Love Should Count You Worthy Ttbb | 10-96040, James Q. Mulholland

Music Faculty Scores

If Love Should Count You Worthy

Part Number:
10-96040

Price:
$1.85

Voicing:
TTBB

Music By:
James Q. Mulholland

with Horn (part included)

Also available in SATB