Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
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ItemUNWRAPPING AUTHENTICITY: Skill development + perception / conception development( 2022)The music that has always meant the most to me has taught me something new about the world, about life, or about myself. It has a brilliance about it, a depth, an innate beauty. The music that has touched me the most has an inherent authenticity, and authenticity touches people. It does not have to be a serious or earnest work; it can be fun, whimsical, or curious. But there remains an underlying integrity, a truthfulness, and a musical communication that lies beyond superficiality, gimmick, or sterile intellectualism and I hope to believe that humans are hard-wired to know when communication is authentic. As a listener, I seek music where there is genuine coherence between the artist and that which they express in their work. As a music maker and practitioner, the continual extension of my technical skills, knowledge, and analysis is essential. However, so too is pondering, deep listening, and observation of oneself and the world, as well as the development of what I would like to say. Whilst technique and research assist a composer to present a work with clarity, poignancy, and potency, they are not the point in and of themselves. So, whilst I extend my technical and analytical music skills, I also seek to clarify and extend my ability to perceive and conceive an integral point of view. Authenticity requires interrogation of one’s perception, broad enquiry, and leaning on one’s own life experiences. I believe that perception is as important a skill to develop in music as it is in the visual arts. I create as I perceive. I am a witness to my life and to my times. Each creative has a chance to deliver a refracted vision of life as we experience it; as we share our version of reality, so too does the collective understanding of life broaden and flourish. This initiates an important feedback loop, where flourishing ideas nourish the community, which then, in turn, nourish new creative endeavours. For this composer, authenticity means witnessing and expressing the corner of reality I inhabit; my culture, my experiences, my observations, and history-in-the-making during my life and times. I locate my music with this compass.
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ItemCreative Collaboration in Music: An Exploration of the Oboe in Australian Contemporary Repertoire( 2021)Collaboration in music is not a new concept in the modern artistic world. However, it is rapidly becoming an area of interest that is worthy of further research, especially in regards to performer-composer collaboration. There are limited resources in existence that examine the creative process involved in writing new works for the oboe from the point of commission to performance. This research project aims to explore collaboration by delving into the interrelationship between commissioner, performer and composer and highlights the creative process necessary to bring new Australian works for the oboe into existence. Three contrasting Australian contemporary oboe works composed since 1980 were selected as the central focus for this research project. The performers and composers of each work were interviewed over a period of three months in order to gain a deeper understanding of the creative process involved. The three collaborations are compared and contrasted throughout this thesis. Further, performances of these works feature in the concert recital which forms the performance-as-research component of my Masters project. This thesis demonstrates the link between meaningful collaboration during the creative process, and how this positively impacts the compositional writing and therefore the outcome of the work. Specifically, the project exposes the role that collaboration plays in the creation of new Australian works for oboe. The findings of this research contribute to the body of academic literature on performer-composer collaboration, and paves the way for further research in this area into the future.