Portfolio of Compositions

Abstract

This composition portfolio comprises eight original compositions: 1. Summons (a cappella choir, 2017) 2. Ezra’s Telescope (solo tuba, 2018) 3. Lines, alive (large chamber ensemble, 2018). 4. Under vast arrays of stars (solo mezzo-soprano, violin, cello and piano, 2018). 5. A Different Tune (solo mezzo-soprano and tuba, 2020) 6. Views from Babel (string quartet, 2019). 7. Lament (oboe, horn and viola, 2020). 8. Crystals Stranding (symphony orchestra, 2020). The accompanying commentary frames these compositions within a research project that intended to explore compositional concerns relating to nonlinear thinking and ritual, ideas of growth and the use of orchestration, for which Olivier Messiaen’s work provided a foundation. Summons, Ezra’s Telescope and Lines, alive pursued these concerns, yet revealed the importance of line and blurring in my music. This precipitated a revision of the project’s aims. In Under vast arrays of stars, A Different Tune, Views from Babel, Lament and Crystals Stranding, I investigated how I could develop ways of blurring distinctions between musical foreground and background, and consider what possible implications a musical line’s properties could have for other material in the same work. Harrison Birtwistle’s approach to orchestration in The Triumph of Time provided a starting point for my own ideas about blurring, and the ways in which Gérard Grisey relates a work’s microphony with its macrophony influenced my own approach to proliferating musical material from a single line. Collaboration with performers was an important aspect of my research and is discussed in terms of affordances throughout. I apply Lara Pearson’s summary of embodied cognition and James J. Gibson’s concept of affordances to arrive at my own application suited to my context as a composer.

Date of Award	31 Dec 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Philip Grange (Supervisor) & Camden Reeves (Supervisor)