The essay component of my Ph.D. Dissertation is not available online at this time. Like all of my scores, the score is available for free upon request (by contacting me). The abstract is presented below.
Abstract
The original musical score of the Concerto for Nohkan and Orchestra, a seventeen minute concerto for a soloist of the Japanese nohkan flute with a Western symphonic orchestra, is provided. Although the nohkan plays an important role in two of Japan’s traditional theatrical genres, noh and kabuki, the instrument is not often used in the genre known as gendai hougaku (new compositions for traditional Japanese instruments), and this is the first known concerto for nohkan with Western orchestra. The accompanying essay introduces the nohkan, and goes on to detail how the composer dealt with various notational and compositional challenges the nohkan presents. Foremost, the nohkan is an instrument of uncertain tuning, the exact pitches of which will vary greatly from one instrument to another. This causes notational problems when notating for the instrument on a Western staff, as well as compositional challenges when combining the instrument with Western instruments of absolute pitch. The composer’s solutions to these challenges are explained and contrasted with solutions employed by other composers who have written for the instrument in a contemporary context. In dealing with these challenges, a variety of techniques were employed, some based on the works of 20th century composers who experimented with unmetered material for large ensemble, chiefly Alan Hovhaness and Iannis Xenakis. Finally, as the nohkan plays a mainly rhythmic role in its traditional genres, this work is also in large part rhythmically conceived, and so comparisons are made to other works that are based around the rhythmic relationships of orchestra and soloist.