Degree

Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA)

Department

School of Music

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

Electroacoustic music has been one of the fastest growing genres in classical art music since the middle the twentieth century. Thanks to the pioneers of the genre such as American composer John Cage, Halim El-Dabh, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Morton Subotnick, Iannis Xenakis, as well many others composers and enthusiasts of the twentieth and the twenty-first century the repertoire of electronic and electroacoustic music has grown tremendously withing the last hundred years. Even today it is still a growing art form as contemporary composers are working with yet to be developed and explored electroacoustic programming and equipment.

The purpose of this project was to commission original electroacoustic works for cello and electronics and to include interpretative discussions from the performer’s point of view. Additionally, this paper presents biographical and stylistic references surrounding the lives and careers of the four composers. The commissioned pieces include original works for cello and electronics: Xenon by Paul Eddison Lewis, Duality by Thomas L. Wilson, Bloom by Austin Franklin, and waveForm by Alex Shanafelt.

The implementation of this project was multifaceted. The author was proudly responsible for the commissions and the selection of the composers represented here (all of whom he respects enormously); for the interpretation, performance, and video documentation of these four new works, and most gratifyingly for the ability and opportunity to have the dialog and shared experience of experimenting with various options and compositional techniques during the collaborative process.

The paper is divided into four chapters. Each chapter presents one of four works along with information about the composer, analysis of the piece, and examination and discussion of the electronic components of these compositions. The author hopes that this project will stimulate increased interest and enjoyment of such works among cellists, and hopes to present these works in a ”performer-friendly” manner.

Committee Chair

Parker, Dennis

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.5656

Share

COinS