Music
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Item Lear(2015) Oberhauser, Michael James; Wilson, Mark E.; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This opera, Lear, draws its libretto directly from William Shakespeare's King Lear. Some supporting characters and subplots have been removed, and some characters have been fused to reduce the time and forces needed to produce this piece. Parent/child relationships, eyesight, and deception/disguises are important themes in this adapted libretto. The last point, deception and disguises, receives special attention in the opera. Each time a character dons a disguise a "transformation" motive is heard. Simultaneously, at least one of the woodwind players will switch to a traditional doubling instrument to add a timbral change to the visual change on the stage. Two characters in the opera never sing, but only speak: Lear and Gloucester. This separates them from the rest of the cast to highlight their paternal nature. The music for spoken sections includes liberal use of fermatas, vamps, and other forms of repetition to underscore the speech. Most characters have musical motives and/or signature styles to aid in their characterization. Goneril and Edmund are intelligent, eloquent, and manipulative. heir music can be triadic and diatonic when they need it to be, and their lines are often winding and chromatic. Regan and Oswald, on the other hand, are more characters of action than thought. Their music is more blunt and to the point. The harmony of the opera moves among diatonic, quartal, whole-tone, octatonic, hexatonic, and more complicated harmonies, depending on the character singing or speaking and what his motives are at that moment. At several points in the opera, a rhythmic pattern will continue over a bar that obscures the meter. Sometimes multiple patterns will be present at once. The harmony is at its most complicated when these patterns overlap, or when two characters' personal motives are presented simultaneously. The opera's duration is approximately two hours. The cast calls for two sopranos, two mezzo-sopranos, two baritones, a bass-baritone, and two male actors. The opera is scored for Flute (doubling Piccolo and Alto Flute), Oboe (doubling English Horn), Bb Clarinet (doubling Bass Clarinet), Bassoon, Horn in F, Percussion (one player), Piano, String Quartet, and Double Bass.Item Distant Light: Songs on Texts by Richard Boada(2010) Collier, Robert E.; Wilson, Mark E; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Distant Light: Songs on Texts by Richard Boada is a collection of songs for baritone voice, piano, alto saxophone, and percussion (vibraphone and marimba). The texts do not present a continuous narrative, but they share common themes. Most are set in the rural South and deal with the conflict between nature and industrial development. This piece functions as a cohesive whole, but each song could be performed separately and would be effective out of the context of the entire work. Distant Light is made up of eight songs and is approximately 23 minutes in duration.Item Requiem for Chorus and Harp: Conductor as Composer, Composer as Conductor(2008) Culverhouse, William; Maclary, Edward; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Western music history is filled with composers who also conduct their own works, and conductors who also devote time to composing. This project will attempt to examine the experience of the composer-conductor by addressing the following questions: First, what is it like to compose a piece of music for a group one conducts regularly? How does one's experience as a conductor influence compositional decision-making? Second, what is it like to conduct one's own music? How does one's experience as a composer influence rehearsal planning and performance conducting? The inquiry will focus on the preparation for and performance on May 16 of three pieces: Advent Antiphons and The Transfiguration, both written for the St. Matthew's Schola Cantorum in 2000, and the Requiem for chorus and harp, begun in January 2007 and completed in April 2008, all with the composer conducting. The completed project will include copies of scores, a DVD of rehearsal excerpts, CDs and DVDs of the performance, and a text document examining the questions mentioned above. The text document will address biographical information on the composer-conductor, focusing on experiences relevant to the inquiry; composition and history of the St. Matthew's Schola Cantorum and of his relationship with them; information about the compositions themselves and the compositional process; and a discussion of the rehearsal process and performance of the pieces.Item The Status of Instruction in Composition in Elementary General Music Classrooms of MENC Members in the State of Maryland(2008-05-05) Phelps, Kerry Bowman; Silvey, Philip; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this study was to examine the status of composition activities in elementary level general music classrooms in the state of Maryland. Participants (N=60) completed an online questionnaire with questions in the areas of teacher demographics, beliefs about composition, and frequency of composition activities in the classroom. Responses indicated that composition was present, at a low frequency, at all student grade levels. Relationships were found between student grade level and structure of composition activity and student grade level and group structure of composition activity. Implications of the frequency of composition activities as well as relationships found for music education are discussed. Suggestions are made for increasing the frequency of composition activities by building upon the most common practices identified by this study.Item Doubt, for narrator and orchestra(2008-04-18) Srinivasan, Asha; Gibson, Robert; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Doubt is a single-movement composition of roughly twelve minutes for narrator and orchestra (woodwinds, horns, and trumpets in pairs, timpani, percussion, strings). The piece explores the controversial issue of capital punishment. The text was compiled from resources found on the websites of Death Penalty Information Center (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org) and Anti-Death Penalty Information (http://www.antideathpenalty.org), as well as excerpts from the Bible. Doubt was conceived of as a dramatic work in which a narrator recites factual information in a direct and unemotional manner and the orchestra provides a response to the mixed emotions elicited by the text. The list of dates and case summaries presented in the middle section of the piece seemed most powerful and effective when recited in a natural speaking voice, which is why I chose not to set the text as song. Also, I chose the orchestral medium rather than a chamber setting because the nature of the topic demanded a larger range of colors and combinations, as well as a louder, fuller sound. Much of the music was composed while deciding which texts to include. Thus the music influenced the choice of text as much as the text suggested the musical setting. The four formal divisions of the piece are delineated primarily by the text. The first section is an orchestral introduction representing various emotional perspectives suggested by the texts. The narrator begins the second section with a Biblical verse over sparse orchestration. The third and main section of the piece begins with a new melody in the low strings that is closely related to the harmonic organization of the piece. The narrator lists dates of convictions, executions, exonerations and facts related to doubtful cases. The third section and the narration conclude with another brief passage from the Bible. The fourth section is a dramatic orchestral coda, bringing back the opening harmonies of juxtaposed perfect fifths. The final chord is full of tension and discord, reflecting the oppositions inherent in the topic of capital punishment: life vs. death, sympathy vs. reproach, pain vs. hope, but above all, doubt about guilt vs. innocence.Item String Quartet no. 2(2006-04-26) Arbury, David Bryant; Gibson, Robert; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)String Quartet, no. 2 is an original composition for standard string quartet that was completed in March 2006. While the piece is intended primarily as a stand-alone creative work, I approached it as something of a culmination of my compositional work to date as well as a look forward into the next phase of my career. As such, the quartet is something of a transitional work, combining elements from my own past technique with a more recent and unified sense of my own style. The quartet is divided into four movements. During my time at the University of Maryland, a frequent topic in my lessons was that of sectionalism in music composition, which is to say the aesthetic of juxtaposition of different musical elements as opposed to composition using a unified texture or a gradual transformation between ideas. As a result of these discussions, one of my first choices in beginning work on this quartet was to choose a unified approach versus a sectional approach. The four movements are organized as follows: a thematic fast movement composed of short elemental themes, a slow movement centered around two canons (one atonal and one modal), a dance movement that uses the baroque menuet and trio as a template, and a dramatic, texture-driven finale. In this way, the macro-structure serves as a kind of homage to classical tradition, an appropriate approach since the piece occasionally serves as an homage to older elements in my own style. However, the classical model only applies to this macro-level of the composition. Most elements within each movement depart significantly from traditional classical forms, just as my own style has macro-elements of classical form and technique that dissipate upon closer scrutiny.Item Bit of nostalgia... for one or two percussionists and live electronics performer(2006-04-30) Boyd, Michael; DeLio, Thomas; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Bit of nostalgia is a work for one or two percussionists and a live electronics performer that explores performer creativity through a graphic score and investigates the ways that the objects performers interact with (instruments) shape their actions/performances. The percussionist(s) take an active role in designing the stage set-up for each performance by superimposing a grid on the performance space, and filling at least half of the sectors with combinations of instrument-types listed in the piece's instructions (including objects made of metal, wood, glass, paper, plastic, and stone). Each sector that contains groups of instruments also contains a music stand holding three of eighteen closely related score pages. The similarities inherent in the various score pages requires that performers frequently reinterpret quasi-redundant visual materials with greatly varying groups of instruments (and objects), emphasizing the differences between each instrument group. While the performance proceeds, another performer interprets the same score using Cycling 74's MAX/MSP (software that accomplishes real-time sound synthesis and processing) to process and playback sound segments from recordings of previous rehearsals and/or performances. To accomplish this, the computer performer utilizes some or all of nine MAX/MSP patches (single windows containing a user designed graphical interface) of my design that incorporate differently controlled ring modulation, filtering, and delay in isolation or various combinations. The percussionists directly respond to these sounds as well as each other while interpreting certain pages of the score that contain the letters I, O, and T (signifying imitate, oppose, and transform respectively). These letters direct the performers to address sounds/actions produced by the other performer, themselves, or the electronics through their interpretations. Through these interactions, I hope to bring a sense of self-history into the piece and create an interesting notion of depth which reflects a broader perspective of what constitutes a "work." Whereas one typically thinks of an artwork as a fixed entity such as a score, I am trying to overtly link and interconnect otherwise marginalized and disparate aspects that contribute to the totality of this piece such as rehearsals and performances.