Search

As part of the dissertation process, three percussion recitals were given. The work below represents the programming and research related to those dissertation recitals. The different focus of each recital represents the pillars of my career as a contemporary musician, reflecting the dimensions of my musical output and research interests. These include my work as an interpreter of other’s work, a collaborative artist, and a creator of original content. The breadth of the music performed on these recitals is not only indicative of my eclectic interests as an artist, but also the demands made on the modern percussionist. The first dissertation recital focussed on solo works composed by a multitude of composers of varied backgrounds and musical languages. The repertoire chosen for this recital demonstrated various treatments of resonance and sustain across an array of percussion instrument collections. This focus on resonance acts as a thread throughout the three dissertation recitals, culminating in the third recital’s focus on the enhancement of resonant properties of the instruments. Additionally, the first recital’s performance represents my duty as an interpreter of standard and modern repertoire, as well as a commissioner of new work for the medium of solo percussion. The second dissertation recital featured my chamber ensemble Latitude 49 in a performance of works specifically written for the group over the past decade. This ensemble has been a significant research vehicle throughout my career since its founding in 2012. The works on this recital featured my abilities as a chamber musician within a collaborative setting, formed by the ensemble members and the living composers we champion. The third dissertation recital included a world premiere of an original work of mine, titled Sensate | Sublimate. This work represents my creative output as a composer, focussing on combining acoustic percussion instruments with electronic sounds. The subject matter of Sensate | Sublimate revolves around my research interests in psychedelic studies and the connections to musical perception as well as listening mechanisms within altered states of consciousness. This performance included digital and analogue technologies to enhance the sonic aspects of the performance as well as a series of digital abstract visualizations, creating a multi-sensorial experience. The scope of this dissertation represents my primary discipline as a percussionist as well as my cognate research in consciousness and music composition.

I offer a cultural history of planned, exclusive suburbs designed and developed between 1877 and 1917 in major metropolitan areas in the eastern and midwestern U.S. It consists of an analysis of suburban planning and architect-designed suburban homes and a reconstruction of the historical design process that produced those suburban forms. I begin by identifying members of the communities of discourse who designed, developed, and /or resided in these suburbs between 1877 and 1917. Next I reconstruct the design process itself: (1) I analyze the social and cultural issues that influenced the debate on proper housing, and (2) outline the consensus that emerged after 1900 concerning the design programs for the suburban ideal. My analysis is based on field research in four historic suburbs: Short Hills, NJ; St. Martin's in Philadelphia, PA; Kenilworth, IL; and Lake of the Isles in Minneapolis, MN. These four case studies--presented in four chapters--form the heart of the thesis. The most powerful constraints upon the suburban design program were not aesthetic or professional considerations, as previous architectural historians have suggested, but (1) a set of cultural assumptions about the American home, (2) combined with anxiety about deleterious housing conditions in the cities. In the late 1870s, architects, developers, and suburban residents began to experiment with the design of the proper residential environment. By 1900 they had reached a consensus in the form of the suburban ideal--the assumption that every family ought to reside in a one-family home with plenty of yard in a locally-controlled, homogeneous suburban community. Those who developed, built, and resided in planned, exclusive suburbs derived from the new Professional-Managerial stratum in urban society. In formulating a design program for the suburban ideal, they had two purposes: (1) to accommodate and formalize their own lifestyles in a suitable setting, and (2) to devise a model residential environment that would address and alleviate the housing and social problems in the city. This dual purpose reveals the "logic" of the suburban design decisions that Professional-Managerial communities made and clarifies why planned suburbs of the period 1877 to 1917 assumed their characteristic form.