Date of Defense

11-3-2024

Date of Graduation

4-2025

Department

Music

First Advisor

David Colson

Second Advisor

Lisa Coons

Third Advisor

Christopher Biggs

Abstract

Hello, all. I'd like to thank you all for coming. Your attendance means a lot to me. First, I would like to thank my family and friends for their constant support. And I would like to give a huge thank you to all of my teachers and mentors. For without you, my musical journey never would have flourished.

This concert that you are about to witness is my senior recital. It is a culmination of my best works. I have toiled hard for many years to create music that I deem suitable for public consumption and it has finally come to fruition. Welcome to my show, Condemned to Affliction. It is about my descent into sadness and subsequent nihilism. So, here's a bit of a content warning: very serious topics will be portrayed by my music. Yes, my friends, I am a tortured artist. But tortured artists are simply descriptors of the human condition. For to be intelligent is to possess knowledge of the cruelty of the world. How can one be happy? Contentment is for fools. Sadness is the affliction of the knowing. Take the great tortured artists, who upon our very western culture emerged. Beethoven with his dark drama and passioned soul that continue to influence musical art. Van Gogh, whose artistry was diminished in life but after death was publicly recognized as beautiful amidst the tortured thought. And Oscar Wilde, who was also ridiculed in life only to become the soulful cultural force that he remains today. I only hope that one day my music can sit among their art at the precipice of the human soul.

We now start with the first piece on the program. It is about the event that started it all. The severance of a long romance that ended in great emotional tragedy and ultimately began the affliction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4Q4s89pl2I&list=LL&index=5&t=1894s

Access Setting

Honors Thesis-Open Access

Included in

Composition Commons

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