INTERVENTION INTO THE FAMILIAR AS THE SITE OF COMPOSITION

This thesis contextualizes my portfolio of scores, presenting my research as an intervention into the familiar in music. I give an account of my work as selecting, re-contextualizing and re-orienting “familiar material” in music with a view to potential temporary, open-ended change at the level of listening, writing and playing. I outline my approach to three categories of familiar material — simple musical objects, early music and common practice music, and modern classical music performance — situating intervention in my work with each. Chapter 1 focuses on simple musical objects and the formal strategies I use to re-contextualize them in my music. Chapter 2 discusses my work with existing repertoire and the broad category of modern classical music performance. Chapter 2 also distinguishes between compositions and arrangements in my portfolio of scores, and the very different relationship to performance represented by these two approaches, proposing both as essential to my ongoing research. I conclude with reflections on and further considerations for my work on intervention into the familiar in music.