The following three pieces, Rendition for cello, contrabass and piano; Cabbages and Kings for clarinet, cello and piano; and Weather Underwater for large chamber ensemble, appear in order of completion, the first two having been composed for Music Department Juries, the last for the 2008 Young Composers Meeting in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands. My work in the master's program has explored interval, unison, consonance, musical spaces that change but do not develop, the obscuring effects of mass, and different senses of time.

Still is a 75-minute music-cinema work that experimentally weaves electronic music, narrative, documentary, and contemporary composition. The work’s four threads, Peril, Dilemma, Transition, and Glory, each ask moral and psychological questions in distinctive, novel aesthetic languages.

This dissertation aims to unravel some of the mysteries surrounding my recent compositional practice by investigating my entire creative philosophy and supporting it with evidence from an in-depth analysis of three recent solo pieces with regard to both musical materials and working processes. The overall structure of this study takes the form of seven chapters and will begin by establishing the precise philosophical scope of this research through personal assertions and responses to pertinent theories. The second chapter focuses on incorporating embodied experience into this discourse and defining my personal positions within the space of creation. The third chapter will discuss the methodology employed in this study, with a particular emphasis on the theatricality of the performance format along with the heterogeneous nature of both sound objects and the collaborative process. In chapters four to six I will present as case studies, three of my recent solo pieces: Bridge - for solo flute, Rough Shell - for solo bass, and PUPA - for solo percussion. Doing this serves the dual purpose of presenting the three solo pieces, and establishing the validity of previously explained theories. Finally, the conclusion summarizes my relevant ideas on composition and collaboration, while also discussing areas for future research in the area of solo musical compositions. This discussion will be informed by my experiences with these three collaborative projects, and I will also provide suggestions for resolving some specific compositional predicaments which I have encountered.

Erwartung und Traumverlust is part of a short-opera that is based on Ryunosuke Akutagawa's short story Kesa and Morito. The instrumentation of the opera is instrumental ensemble, two voices, and live- and fixed media-electronics. Two parts of this opera are submitted as part of the thesis: a solo for voice, which is part of the second and third scene, and the fifth scene, which is an ensemble scene without voice.

Aufschlag is an open score for any four instruments. Performance details have to be determined in a rehearsal process similar to the theater context. It was written having a third person in mind, that acts as a mediator between the composer and the interpreters.

still getting rid of is a set of songs for soprano, mezzo-soprano and orchestra. Two vocal soloists are presented as a single protagonist, singing poetry written by Clint McCallum. The individual movements (with durations) are: Introduction: "welcome back" (1:00), Trauma/Birth (2:40), Interlude 1 (:20), Learning/New Body New Mind (1:30), Interlude 2 (:20), Waiting/Only death will cure you (3:00), Tattoo You/Tattoo Me (4:00), Interlude 3 (:45), and Concescration (4:00). The poetry that has been set presents the narrative of an individual living with and through an unidentified traumatic event. Harmonically, the piece ranges from free atonality, microtonality, to functional tonality. The vocal writing is based primarily on rhythmically unanimous behaviors between the vocalists, supporting their unification into a single protagonist. The orchestra functions in three ways: as support for, extension of, and as antagonist to the soloists. These orchestral behaviors are achieved through a range of orchestrational strategies, from traditional section-based activity to divisions of the orchestra into chamber sub--groups. The vocal soloists embody multiple emotional/psychological states, which are achieved through a full range of vocal behaviors: dissonant harmonic relationships occasionally (but not often) balanced by consonance, extreme vocal registers suddenly appearing within otherwise calm landscapes, and the use of a megaphone to timbrally distance the protagonist from his/her primary role. With the exception of a few isolated moments, the text is presented by the soloists in such a way that it can be intelligible without the aid of the written text.

Resources from a variety of disciplines were gathered, compared and woven together to create Ouroboros, an eighteen-minute work for large chamber ensemble and audio-visual media, as well as the programming of Apocryphal Chrysopoeia, a software instrument used to create the audio-visual components of Ouroboros. The temporal structure and thematic subject matter of this work are based on a text collage that dwells upon the peril and promise of automata. This collage is a palimpsest of Heinrich von Kleist's On the Marionette Theatre, overlaid upon E.T.A. Hoffmann's The Sandman, both in English translation. Furthermore, excerpts of non-fiction critical texts dealing with the use of abstraction and algorithms in the creation of music serve as textual interludes during the narrative structure of the Hoffmann-Kleist palimpsest. The resulting text is projected as supertitles during the performance. The ensemble music and audio-visual media were composed to respond to the text, sometimes empathizing with it, and other times moving indifferently to it. Algorithmic processes, abstractions based in music psychology, and structures related to the physics of real and imagined instruments guide the music and audio-visual media in Ouroboros. The changing spatial relationships of audio-visual modules in the virtual instrument Apocryphal Chrysopoeia produce the modulation of harmonic fields, bounding the pitch material for both the electronic and acoustic instruments. A pitch space model extrapolated from work by Roger Shepard determined the basic spatial arrangement of these modules. However, it was discovered that distortion of this spatial model was required to continually refresh the harmonic material. A cellular automaton articulates this pitch space model in time, creating variegated but principled patterns in both sound and light. This sound-light activity is mediated by a variety of effects aimed at finding points of synchresis between auditory and visual behaviors, drawing upon the visual music tradition for inspiration. Alongside this audio-visual behavior, the music composed for acoustic instruments frequently involves imitative counterpoint in multiple tempi, a process bound by the harmonic fields found in the audio-visual instrument. Furthermore, specific instrumental techniques, most notably split-tone multiphonics on the trumpet, were explored to find timbral connections between the acoustic and electronic domains.

The music composition portfolio consists of three works presented in three chapters. The first chapter titled “Casuarina-salvaged Dreaming” includes a work for eight performers plus electronics, lasting for approximately 10 minutes. This composition was premiered by the graduate students of UC San Diego’s Department of Music, and conducted by Steve Schick. The work is presented in a semi-flexible time-banned system whereby the conductor can assert some agency in the duration of the composition. The electronics utilise sound sources that are localised within the Southwest of Australia, and these samples are drawn randomly from different categorised pools with differing durations, and cast across the 4 channels of the concert hall. Then, the ensemble reacts, replicates, and maneuvers around these electronics.

The second chapter consists of a 6-minute composition for a small chamber ensemble entitled “a moment exposed”. Through this work I focus on creating a extensive introduction, a dialogue between the clarinet and violin. The two instruments paired together, performing in a sort of chaotic unity where the two instruments interact and replicate each other's gestures in a raucous opening — acting together, but vocal in insisting on their own instrumental identity. Often, the clarinet sits above the violin’s register, with the violin utilising more of its lower register — the 4th string is also tuned lower to ground the violin further. Out of the pair’s final explosion emerges the rest of the ensemble. The two low strings are in their upper register, and the piano vamps soft chords — acting as a cloud which sits underneath the interjections of the clarinet and violin.

Chapter three is entitled “Star Picc” for amplified piccolo, vocoder, tape, and a big drum. This work features live processing of the piccolo using pitch shifter. The shifter has 6 independent lines, one for each channel. The speakers are separated with the left channel next to the performer, and the right channel behind the audience — becoming more present in the latter half of the work. The piece explores contemporary performance practice, contrasted against kitsch robotic sounds in the fixed media and electronic pitch bending in its processing.

Poems of sheer nothingness is an original song cycle for soprano and chamber ensemble that sets the poetic introductions of five early troubadours in their original Occitan. Written between the 12th and 15th centuries in southern France, these five introductions originally served as preambles (themselves sung) to a much longer song. In Poems of sheer nothingness the subsequent love songs are done away with, leaving their introductions in isolation to provide commentary on poetry, songwriting, and the relationship between words and music.

The textual introduction describes some of the compositional techniques found within the song cycle, tracing their origins in the phenomenological philosophy of Franz Brantano, Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Martin Heidegger. These include the concepts of sonic phenomena, sonic objects, eidetic variation, and the auditory scene. Text setting and the composer's original translation and transliteration of the five Occitan texts are also discussed. Musical examples accompany the text throughout, which is followed by a complete score of the five songs.

In my recent composition work I make use of a variety of extra-musical references, which are all derived from the visual domain, whether imaginary or real. A major area of interest that I investigate in my current music is the influence that these visual references can have in the domain of structure and musical form. A further point that deserves consideration is how these can influence mood and message in the resulting music in a way that this connection becomes meaningful and clear. I am also particularly interested in sources that have cyclic behavior as a central element, and in developing optimal strategies through which this behavior can be transferred to the musical domain.

These points of consideration were investigated in depth during the last phase of my creative practice studies at UC San Diego and had as their outcome the three pieces that constitute my PhD dissertation in music composition. One of these pieces represents my first use of the electronic medium. In it I explore a variety of manipulations of the instrumental (violin) sound combined with the idea of spatialization. In the dissertation essay that accompanies my musical compositions, I elaborate on the above-mentioned points with an analytical approach. I also draw comparative conclusions on the degree of their success, in regards to my creative intentions and prospects of the future.

Over the course of my two years of study in the UCSD department of music, I composed the following three pieces: turns twice, Tapestries II and Shore Grass. These three pieces appear in the order they were completed.

These three consecutive pieces represent a period of formal exploration. I made a concerted effort towards understanding, creating, imagining and constructing different forms from the sounds I found most attractive from the available instrumentation. Through the exploration of form, I discovered new sounds I would not have previously found attractive and have begun to understand how to incorporate these elements into my music. My effort towards understanding form does not detract from interest in the musical moment, but hopefully enriches the moment, filling it with new meaning.