Ping, Pang, Pong for symphony band.

Ping, Pang, Pong is an eleven-minute composition scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 6 clarinets in pairs, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 saxophones, 4 trumpets, 4 french horns, 2 trombones, bass trombone, baritone, tuba, double bass, timpani, 4 percussion, and piano. The general conceit and formal structure of the work both arise from the longstanding wind ensemble tradition of performing transcriptions of nineteenth-century Italian opera overtures. The title refers to the three comic characters from the nineteenth-century operatic adaptations of Carlo Gozzi's seventeenth-century farce, Turandot. I've always wondered what might have happened had Ping, Pang, and Pong, and the subversive nature that they represent, been featured more prominently in the romantic adaptations. Gozzi's Turandot was primarily intended to poke fun at his competitors. But this aggression is completely missing from the nineteenth-century Turandots. Thus, I have created an overture for an operatic version of Turandot that doesn't exist. My version embraces this subversive nature. I have created nine continuous scenes that focus on Ping, Pang, and Pong. The sound worlds I have created to represent Ping, Pang, and Pong are in a contemporary idiom, placed in juxtaposition to scenes featuring a sound world analogous to that of late romantic Italian opera. The scenes incorporate fragments of late-romantic material, which I use and incorporate into the music representing Ping, Pang, and Pong. This struggle between sound worlds produces an irreverent and lighthearted nature, which is similar in tone to that of Gozzi's original play. Therefore, my onomatopoetic title not only promises excitement and percussive outbursts, but also serves a deeper purpose, functioning as a metaphor and revealing the key that unlocks the musical intent and structure.D.M.A.; Ph.D.Communication and the ArtsMusicUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/124003/2/3121877.pd