ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

How Music Travels: The Chamber Opera “Blood, Hunger, Child”

by

Jon Forshee

Doctor of Philosophy

University of California, San Diego, 2017

Professor Anthony Davis, Chair

Katharina Rosenberger, Co-Chair

The dissertation elaborates a narrative and an analysis of the compositional process of the chamber opera Blood Hunger Child. The narrative dimension of the dissertation identifies themes functional to the composition of the chamber opera. Because they are functional, these themes are positioned as indigenous to the libretto and to the music of the work. Subsequently these themes provide the foundation of an analysis that is presented as specific to as well as exegetical of the process of composition.

The dissertation first outlines the conceptual background of Blood Hunger Child, and identifies three themes as emergent during the process of composition: an engagement with Yoruban mythology, an investigation of musical unity, and narrative syncretism of Yoruban mythology and the characters of the opera. After the general presentation of each of these themes, an investigation of Esu, the trickster of Yoruban mythology is presented, an understanding of musical unity is given, and a discovery of narrative and musical synthesis is outlined and proposed.

The musical score of Blood Hunger Child accompanies the dissertation as the realization of the process and the themes discussed in the text.