Portfolio of Original Compositions: Music of Possibility

The first half of this thesis begins from what for me are the four most significant innovations of twentieth century music: systematic composition methods, electronic and digital technology, free improvisation, and awareness of the historical, geographical and social dimensions of music. Possibilities for radicalising these areas are discussed, in the course of which several concepts central to my musical thinking, such as “radically idiomatic instrumentalism” and “seeded improvisation” are introduced. The second half focuses on the works submitted in the composition portfolio, both as practical explorations of the ideas discussed in the first half and as the environment in which those ideas originate and continue to evolve. These are world-line for electric lap steel guitar with trumpet, percussion and electronics, close-up for electroacoustic sextet, urlicht for percussion trio, eiszeiten for brass trio and electronics, and wake for three instrumental trios and electronics, all of which address from different directions the central issues of this research: the application to notated composition of concepts emerging from free improvisation, including highly systematic approaches, and an attempt to fuse the aforementioned innovations into a unified and coherent creative practice, in order to widen the way to future possibilities, and perhaps not only musical ones