Composing with plural approaches to tonality, source, and style

This thesis consists of a portfolio of nine musical works composed during the period of 2015-2018, accompanied by a written dissertation and audio recordings. These compositions span a range of instrumental forces, from solo to orchestral, and reflect a trajectory of how my composing methods have been developed through practice-based research. Throughout the dissertation, I examine how my artistic practice is concerned with the conscious absorption of diverse materials as an approach to composition, and the aesthetic and technical considerations that arise during the process of approaching this. I begin with an overview of my use of the term ‘plural’ as a basis for this project, before moving on to discussions surrounding the use of plurality as a method of exploring approaches to: tonality; sources from inside music; sources from outside music; techniques of hybridity and layering; and the defining of musical characters and moods as a way of understanding my resulting stylistic voice. This study includes the analysis of my own creative process, as well as those of other composers, with the intention of situating my recent work within a wider field of current as well as historical compositional practices and perspectives