"Double Rainbow," "Appalachiana," and "'The Invisible Mass': Exploring Compositional Technique in Alfred Schnittke's Second Symphony"

This dissertation consists of three distinct components: (1) “Double Rainbow,” a notated composition for an acoustic ensemble of 10 instruments, ca. 36 minutes. (2) “Appalachiana”, a fixed-media composition for electro-acoustic music and video, ca. 30 minutes, and (3) “'The Invisible Mass': Exploring Compositional Technique in Alfred Schnittke’s Second Symphony”, an analytical article.

(1) Double Rainbow is a ca. 36 minute composition in four movements scored for 10 instruments: flute, Bb clarinet (doubling on bass clarinet), tenor saxophone (doubling on alto saxophone), french horn, percussion (glockenspiel, vibraphone, wood block, 3 toms, snare drum, bass drum, suspended cymbal), piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass. Each of the four movements of the piece explore their own distinct character and set of compositional goals. The piece is presented as a musical score and as a recording, which was extensively treated in post-production.

(2) Appalachiana, is a ca. 30 minute fixed-media composition for music and video. The musical component was created as a vehicle to showcase several approaches to electro-acoustic music composition –fft re-synthesis for time manipulation effects, the use of a custom-built software instrument which implements generative approaches to creating rhythm and pitch patterns, using a recording of rain to create rhythmic triggers for software instruments, and recording additional components with acoustic instruments. The video component transforms footage of natural landscapes filmed at several locations in North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia into a surreal narrative using a variety of color, lighting, distortion, and time-manipulation video effects.

(3) “‘The Invisible Mass:’ Exploring Compositional Technique in Alfred Schnittke’s Second Symphony” is an analytical article that focuses on Alfred Schnittke’s compositional technique as evidenced in the construction of his Second Symphony and discussed by the composer in a number of previously untranslated articles and interviews. Though this symphony is pivotal in the composer’s oeuvre, there are currently no scholarly articles that offer in-depth analyses of the piece. The article combines analyses of the harmony, form, and orchestration in the Second Symphony with relevant quotations from the composer, some from published and translated sources and others newly translated by the author from research at the Russian State Library in St. Petersburg. These offer a perspective on how Schnittke’s compositional technique combines systematic geometric design with keen musical intuition.

Broadband electromagnetic cloaking with smart metamaterials.

The ability to render objects invisible with a cloak that fits all objects and sizes is a long-standing goal for optical devices. Invisibility devices demonstrated so far typically comprise a rigid structure wrapped around an object to which it is fitted. Here we demonstrate smart metamaterial cloaking, wherein the metamaterial device not only transforms electromagnetic fields to make an object invisible, but also acquires its properties automatically from its own elastic deformation. The demonstrated device is a ground-plane microwave cloak composed of an elastic metamaterial with a broad operational band (10-12 GHz) and nearly lossless electromagnetic properties. The metamaterial is uniform, or perfectly periodic, in its undeformed state and acquires the necessary gradient-index profile, mimicking a quasi-conformal transformation, naturally from a boundary load. This easy-to-fabricate hybrid elasto-electromagnetic metamaterial opens the door to implementations of a variety of transformation optics devices based on quasi-conformal maps.

Low-loss directional cloaks without superluminal velocity or magnetic response.

The possibility of making an optically large (many wavelengths in diameter) object appear invisible has been a subject of many recent studies. Exact invisibility scenarios for large (relative to the wavelength) objects involve (meta)materials with superluminal phase velocity [refractive index (RI) less than unity] and/or magnetic response. We introduce a new approximation applicable to certain device geometries in the eikonal limit: piecewise-uniform scaling of the RI. This transformation preserves the ray trajectories but leads to a uniform phase delay. We show how to take advantage of phase delays to achieve a limited (directional and wavelength-dependent) form of invisibility that does not require loss-ridden (meta)materials with superluminal phase velocities.

Three-dimensional broadband omnidirectional acoustic ground cloak.

The control of sound propagation and reflection has always been the goal of engineers involved in the design of acoustic systems. A recent design approach based on coordinate transformations, which is applicable to many physical systems, together with the development of a new class of engineered materials called metamaterials, has opened the road to the unconstrained control of sound. However, the ideal material parameters prescribed by this methodology are complex and challenging to obtain experimentally, even using metamaterial design approaches. Not surprisingly, experimental demonstration of devices obtained using transformation acoustics is difficult, and has been implemented only in two-dimensional configurations. Here, we demonstrate the design and experimental characterization of an almost perfect three-dimensional, broadband, and, most importantly, omnidirectional acoustic device that renders a region of space three wavelengths in diameter invisible to sound.

Due to her tender age: Black girls and childhood on trial in South Carolina, 1885-1920

Drawing on local criminal court records in western and central South Carolina, this dissertation follows the legal experiences of black girls in South Carolina courts between 1885 and 1920, a time span that includes the aftermath of Reconstruction and the foundational years of Jim Crow. While scholars continue to debate the degree to which black children were included in evolving conversations about childhood and child protection, this dissertation argues that black girls were critical to turn-of-the century debates about all children's roles in society. Far from invisible in the courts and jails of their time, black girls found themselves in the crosshairs of varying forms of power --including intraracial community surveillance, burgeoning local government, Progressive reform initiatives and military policy -- particularly when it came to matters of sexuality and reproduction. Their presence in South Carolina courts established boundaries between early childhood, adolescence and womanhood and pushed legal stakeholders to consider the legal implication of age, race, and gender in criminal proceedings. Age had a complicated effect on black girls' legal encounters; very young black girls were often able to claim youth and escape harsher punishments, while courts often used judicial discretion to levy heavier sentences to adolescents and violent girl offenders. While courts helped to separate early childhood from the middle years, they also provided a space for African-American children and family to engage a legal system that was moving rapidly toward disenfranchising blacks.