Award Date

5-1-2016

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA)

Department

Music

First Committee Member

Timothy Jones

Second Committee Member

Dean Gronemeier

Third Committee Member

Anthony Labounty

Fourth Committee Member

Kenneth Hanlon

Fifth Committee Member

Sean Clark

Number of Pages

169

Abstract

Percussion and film have shared a parallel and overlapping history since the dawn of the silent film era in the late nineteenth century. However, musical scores written specifically for percussionists with silent or silenced film for the sake of concert performance has a newer, more contemporary and artistic repertoire that will undoubtedly proliferate with the continued development of percussion performance and available technology. This document is in three parts. The first part provides context with an introduction, a brief history of film, and early film accompaniment. The second part pertains to the Australian composer, Nigel Westlake and his work, The Invisible Men. The third part explores three additional works of merit for film and percussion: Gene Koshinski’s The Mermaid, Drew Worden’s Escape: Sextet for Triangles, and Rick Dior’s Science Fiction. All of these works are original chamber percussion scores intended to be synchronized either exactly or closely to the chosen film. This survey will include composer biographies, a history and analysis of the works, and a performance guide eliminating barriers to performance and offering future composers insight into writing for this genre.

Keywords

Chamber; Invisible Men; Nigel Westlake; Percussion; Percussion Ensemble; Silent Film

Disciplines

Music

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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