Discovering, creating and experiencing notions of theatricality in musical performance

Abstract

This thesis consists of a portfolio of musical compositions and a written commentary. The submitted works creatively challenge the form of a conventional concert by exploring methods of bringing to the fore the theatrical side of musical performance: its inherited or implemented conceptual and visual aspects. The portfolio is divided into three main categories. The first comprises a series of pieces that balance between music theatre and conventional concert practices. The second category includes works that reform many aspects of the traditional concert presentation, without breaking away from it. The third category includes works that experiment within the territory determined by the previous categories. The written commentary presents theoretically the compositional approach used throughout the portfolio and provides a brief philosophical background, such as is necessary to explain the underlying concepts, ideas, preoccupations and concerns. It also contains a comprehensive analysis of the submitted works, their aims, contextual links, applied methodologies, associations with other composers’ works and interconnections between them.