Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationChester, NJ is a composition for electronics and full orchestra that explores the relationship between the propensity for artificiality inherent in electronic music and the richly human experience of performing orchestral music. The work unfolds in four distinct sections, outlining a slow moving symmetrical ascent of major thirds: C E G# and C. The analysis of Beat Furrer's Konzert fiir Klavier and Or Chester asserts that Furrer's concerto self-defines through a number of iterative loops, the most important being the recurrence and transformation of the ordered chromatic collection: the chromatic scale. Furrer's extensive and clear use of the chromatic scale in conjunction with other identity-building loops places his concerto in the category of a strange loop as defined by Douglas Hofstadter