Doctoral Dissertations--Composition (DM)

Permanent link for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/2022/14079

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A Psalm of Spark and Seed
(Indiana University, 2025-04-22) Smith, Isaac
Program Notes Solarpunk is a philosophy that approaches the future with optimism, envisioning a sustainable way of humanity’s survival through responsible use of technology. It stresses the importance of community and togetherness in spite of our differences, and sees the often intractable problems of climate change, poverty, food insecurity, and war as solvable. I knew that I wanted my dissertation to address the issue of climate change, but my initial sketches were understandably grim. More and more, I felt that optimism was a far more radical – and important – approach to the problem, and that if I had anything to say artistically about such a huge danger to humanity, it would be to channel my anger and fear into a message of hope. From that hope comes A Psalm for Spark and Seed. The title is in part inspired by a book in the solarpunk genre, A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers, whose work is uplifting and beautiful. A psalm is a sacred song of praise, and in my piece, that praise is directed towards the literal and metaphorical “spark” and “seed”. Ursula K. LeGuin's The Dispossessed and Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia also inspired and informed the piece, but neither of them hit the center of how I felt (and how I hoped to feel) as purely as Chambers' work. Both the spark and the seed are robust metaphors in English. They are symbols of ideas and potential, as well as a catalyst for change (e.g. “the spark of revolution” or “seeds of discontent”). The spark is also a symbol for humanity’s sentience, and the seed often represents the origins of life itself. In their more literal sense, they are often seen as antithetical to one another. I am a native Californian, and the wildfires that regularly ravage my home state are a perfect example of the danger the “spark” poses to the “seed.” However, while studying the life cycle of the California sequoia trees, I discovered something miraculous: they need fire to survive. The natural fire cycles caused by lightning strikes – and later, by Native American ecological stewardship – cleared overgrown underbrush, providing fertile soil for the trees to grow. These trees adapted to those conditions so much that their cones wait until they feel the heat of a wildfire to open up and spread their seeds onto the newly revitalized forest floor. A Psalm of Spark and Seed imagines that deeply opposed, yet symbiotic relationship through music. It is set in two movements, nearly equal in length. At its core, it uses unequal parts to create a balanced whole: asymmetrical rhythms, chords and scales made up of uneven steps, as well as sharply juxtaposed textures. More broadly, the entire movements themselves are diametrically opposed in many ways. The first movement is a fiery, high energy dynamo, occasionally jubilant, often brutal. Its music is inspired by punk rock, both in its driving rhythm and its massive, noisy “power chords.” An asymmetrical groove is established and resisted by regular pulses, giving the whole movement a tense backdrop for the slowly moving harmony underneath. It culminates in a “chorus” where these two rhythmic ideas fight to coexist. The second movement is delicate, intimate, introspective, and serene – though it has its moments of joy and grandeur, as well. Its melodic material is a re-imagining of the horn call from Brahms’ Symphony No. 1, which itself is derived from an alphorn call. The alphorn and the overtone series it uses to make music are old symbols of the natural world in western music. This familiar melody is stretched and elaborated into new shapes, some broad and powerful, some tender and playful. At its heart, however, this movement celebrates the beauty of the natural world. These two movements come together to form a complete whole, just as their constituent unequal parts do to form each melodic phrase, harmonic progression, and formal section. They are the musical embodiment of industry and nature, and though they contain both the anger and pain I feel when confronting the existential threat of climate change, A Psalm of Spark and Seed is a song of hope for a brighter future, and a call to make it a reality.
Afterimages: for orchestra
Sink, Phillip, 1982-
American symphonic journeys
(Indiana University, 2023-12-14) Yee-Paulson, Ben, 1994-
Beetles, dragons, & dreamers: for orchestra
(2014-05-08) Eötvös, Melody, 1984-
Chamber symphony
Sweeney, Mike, 1982-
Concerto for chorus
(Indiana University, 2020-07-21) Rubin, Corey, 1983-
Concerto for wind ensemble
(Indiana University, 2023-04-18) Rankin, Robert
Conquering sun
(Indiana University, 2019-04-30) Rotolo, Kyle, 1986-
Dance dance circumvolution
(Indiana University, 2021-11-07) Kunselman, Jamie
Dans l'espoir de ce jour
(2013-12-20) Kingsland, Chappell, 1980-
A setting of a poem by Léopold Sédar Senghor for baritone and chamber orchestra.
Danzas encefálicas: Dream cycles for sinfonietta and electronics
(Indiana University, 2020-07-14) Tovar-Henao, Felipe, 1991-
Deluge
(Indiana University, 2024-05-07) Oh, Jeongung, 1992-
E pluribus
(Indiana University, 2017-12-06) Smith, Curtis N., 1983-
This piece is about the individual and the collective, and is inspired by democracy. There are two main characters—the ocean of sound, represented most prominently by the strings—especially at the beginning and end, and a tonal chord progression that emerges gradually from the dense cluster at the beginning of the piece. The sublimation of the tonal progression into the cluster and the cluster’s interaction with the tonal progression propel the piece, delineate structure, and act as a type of embodiment for the societal shifts and interactions experienced in a democracy.
Ghost of the machine
(2014-05-14) Chase, Ryan, 1987-
Gonna get your soul start dancing
(2016-04-19) Podgursky, Jeremy
“…here they come, the birds of my youth!” : in memoriam Sven-David Sandström
(Indiana University, 2021-04-22) Hurst, Jay, 1989-
Icarus
(2013-05-09) Lindsay, Eric, 1980-
Discussions about music, as with those about life, often circle around the idea of goal-directed motion. In these conversations, many of the metaphors we use to describe directionality can apply across contexts—stasis vs. transition, cycles of repetition vs. developing variation, drive vs. aimlessness, and so on. Similarly, many of us tend to attribute these labels to our perception of a piece’s agency, anthropomorphizing musical gestures as though they were characters on a journey. My objective in Icarus was to reflect on the symbiosis between the transitions we undergo in and outside of the listening experience. (As a personal aside, this piece was written at a time when the clearly delineated goals of academia gave way to the uncertain ones that dictate what comes next in life.) Like the mercurial transitions that connect the primary and secondary theme areas in late-Romantic sonatas, what was once the obvious end-goal now becomes one of several alternative, often-conflicting possibilities, conjuring a state of unrest and instability. Making decisions in a world of increasing opportunities is the spice of life... yes, except for that moment where competing internal dichotomies seem to keep life from moving forward. I sometimes liken this juncture to Icarus’ leap from the tower high above the cliffs of Crete, where Icarus fashioned his own fall by disastrously letting an opposing agent—hubris—distract him from the goal of flight. The language of this piece is itself a reflection of these tensions, born of an effort to rally notions of personal fulfillment, voice, style, substance and intuition together into a showcase and distillation of all I’ve ever learned. This state is reflected, too, in the musical gestures themselves, where repeated sections (or "ritornelli") are pushed and pulled by various ingredients within the material fighting for greater prominence. With each structural repetition, the goal of a passage is colored by the implications of alternatingly prominent rhythmic, metric and/or harmonic characteristics. The end result is a collection of earnest, opposing ambitions—blazing forward while always threatening to rip the whole apart at the seams.
Ile
Donner, Ezra, 1986-
Imperiled sea
(Indiana University, 2021-05-04) Trachsel, Will, 1988-
Interstellar arias
(2014-05-06) Snethkamp, Steven, 1982-

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