Projects in cross-cultural music composition : a thesis and portfolio submitted to the New Zealand School of Music in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music in Composition, New Zealand School of Music

Abstract

The creation of music cross-culturally is a rich, cutting-egde field in contemporary music studies. This thesis examines the practice of cross-cultural music composition through the lens of the tradition of Western art music and my own perspective as a composer representing that tradition. This portfolio comprises original compositions for various musical instrumentations including Indonesian gamelan and Chinese yangqin, and which utilise a range of technical and contextual approaches that are described in the thesis. Reference is made to historic precedents (mainly twentieth-century) including a case study of one composer (Lou Harrison), in order to give a context to my own work and musical thinking.