City Research Online

Abstract

This dissertation, along with its accompanying musical scores and recordings, explores the intersection of medievalism and spectralism in my creative practice. Through composition, I ask: How might spectral(ist) and medievalist conceptions of time, sound, melody, harmony, thresholds, and hierarchy be entwined and transfigured? How might new medievalisms inform contemporary classical music practice and open creative and pedagogical pathways for composers? My project also highlights the unique opportunity that medievalism provides for merging spectralism and spectrality: perhaps for the first time, this conflation formally situates spectralism within a queer philosophical context. The idea of composing in the middle serves as both a creative methodology and a critical lens, positioning the Middle Ages as a site of liminality where creators may forge tools to engage with the present. Inhabiting this space has led me to develop a peripatetic, holistic practice that moves between eras, intellectual traditions, and disciplines such as musicology, performance, pedagogy, and visual art.

The works encompass diverse forms, including spectral settings of Machaut (“Se vous n’estes”), original insights into Old Roman chant structure (“Greu m’es a durar”), spectral transcriptions of chant (“Quintina”), medievalist interpretations of lofi hip hop (“subtiliorbeats”), new performance strategies for trobairitz and Corsican traditions (“Dieus sal la terra”), and sonic representations of architecture and spectral memory (“Sound Installation”).

By embracing the middle – between tradition and innovation, theory and practice, written and oral traditions, male and female identity, northern and southern cultures, politics and poetics, legitimacy and marginality – this dissertation demonstrates how composition can function as a tool for exploring, negotiating, and reimagining tradition.

Publication Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Subjects:	M Music and Books on Music > M Music
Departments:	Doctoral Theses

Export

Downloads