UC San Diego

In this paper, I will analyze three substantial works created while studying at UC San Diego, to facilitate friction (2020) for violin and live electronics, Spate III (2022) for amplified chamber ensemble, and untitled (2023) for amplified septet and live electronics, as case studies to convey and elucidate the compositional approaches, challenges, questions, and concerns that are most exciting to me at this point in time and most critical to the function and (at least my) understanding of my recent works. Other pieces, both recent and from the more distant past, will be mentioned in brief to aid in connecting these works together and to better assemble a compelling narrative of how my compositional practice and resulting compositions have evolved over the course of my doctoral journey. These three works will be primarily discussed in terms of the manipulation and distortion of linear and nonlinear perceptions of time, the sculpting of granularity/microsounds, the physicality of/physical exertion inherent in extended instrumental techniques and improvisatory materials, trajectories, and vectors over time, and the spectromorphology of the interactions of instrumental and electronically produced sounds. The writings of Jonathan Kramer, Gérard Grisey, Curtis Roads, Denis Smalley, and a myriad of others will provide an analytical framework and foundation and be called upon to reinforce the arguments and perspectives put forth about my own work throughout this paper.