CIRCUITION: CONCERTO FOR JAZZ GUITAR AND ORCHESTRA

Circuition: Concerto for Jazz Guitar and Orchestra is a programmatic musical composition which tells the story of the life cycle. Each part is designed to represent a particular time in life through age or set of events that relate to all people regardless of the specifics in one’s life. Although I disclose how the program of relates to specifics within my own life, the goal is that a listener will find resonance with their own. In this document I examine how the elements of form, harmony, melody, and rhythm shape the composition and inform its programmatic nature. Topics are divided into six chapters: The Conceptual and Compositional Process, “Part I: So, It Begins”, “Part II: The Response”, “Part III: Inquisitorial”, “Part IV: To the End”. These chapters will include musical examples, detailed analysis depicted through figures and text explanations, and information pertaining to the programmatic design. The objective of chapter one is to reveal this composer’s influences and how they relate to the musical creativity and program of the storyline, how the musical ideas were engineered to convey the story, the origins of the program, and how the combined elements of jazz guitar and the jazz vocabulary in conjunction with traditional orchestral instruments and writing culminate into a single work. Chapters two through five will break down each part into the four components previously mentioned: form, harmony, melody, and rhythm