Formless being for flute, clarinet, bassoon, french horn, percussion, piano and string quartet

Thesis (D.M.A.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Formless being can be thought of as a piece with a circular structure whose segments are cut short, just as the idea reaches its full development. An idea is presented and developed, pressing forward through the movement, only to be suppressed in its prime. Formless Being is an exploration of the meaning of continuous musical structure and the perceptual continuity between fragments. Successive movements pick up on where the previous movement ended, though there is sometimes a 'gap' of musical development between where one left off and another begins. The common point — the 'origin' in the circle metaphor — is harmonic: a common chord serves as a reference point throughout the piece and appears in different manifestations to different extents in each movement.