Composing narratives: Reimagining musical storytelling in new vocal and instrumental works

This submission, comprising a portfolio of four new musical works with commentary, explores musical narrativity, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of DMus in Composition. The research was principally conducted through creative practice, as embodied in the scores and recordings, following established models of Practice as Research (PaR) across the creative arts. However, given that entirely self-evident examples of innovative creative practice are considered rare (Nelson 2013, 19), the purpose and aims of the written element are to illuminate the research process and facilitate an interplay (rather than segregation) of theory and practice. The documentation follows a largely “self-narrative” approach (Spry 2001, 710), with the aim of capturing the “ephemeral aspects of the creative process—which are precisely the kinds of knowledge that only creative practitioners can provide” (Leedham and Scheuregger 2018, 4). As such, the submission as a whole is concerned not only with storytelling through composition, but at the same time, the stories that we, as composers, tell about the act of composing itself.