AbstractsLanguage, Literature & Linguistics

I designed my composition Bound, and its premiere performance, to serve as the most substantive and holistic creative endeavor possible. To achieve this goal, I used funds from the Rackham school of music to underwrite the commission original poetry from Lauren Clark, an award-winning MFA student in Creative Writing here at the University of Michigan. Moreover, I also used these funds to hire Megan Ihnen, an internationally-renowned mezzo-soprano who specializes in contemporary music, and four members of Latitude49, an accomplished Midwest-based new music ensemble, to perform Bound in March, 2015. I programmed a full-length recital of my chamber music at First Presbyterian Church in Ypsilanti, MI at which Bound???s premiere acted as the closing and crowning performance. Finally, I arranged for an experienced audio engineer produce a professional-grade recording of the entire recital. I worked on Bound for eight months from the point I received Lauren???s newly- commissioned poetry, to the final changes I made leading up to the premiere on March 14, 2015. Bound???s longest three movements, ???Bound???, ???Bound III???, and ???Bound V???, each sets a different poem of Lauren???s, which I altered only slightly to fit my musical ideas as best a possible. However, the five shorter movements, dubbed ???interludes???, use texts excerpted and adapted from a fourth poem of Lauren???s, ???Bound VI???. Thus, Bound???s three long movements are meant to act as the work???s structural and narrative pillars, with the five interludes connecting and supplementing Bound???s musical and lyrical storytelling. I consider Bound a major work because of its length, meticulous structure, and the complexity of its textual themes. Bound investigates the we try to make sense of and protect ourselves from the trauma we experience when our meaningful relationships dissolve. From its instrumentation to its fundamental motives, every aspect of Bound???s sound world is designed to convey the nuance and continuity of Lauren???s poetry, which is simultaneously somber, wistful, and ardent. I believe Bound clearly respects the abstract and naturalistic imagery of the original text, while also conveying the poetry???s deeper narrative of vulnerability, loss, and memory.