Creativity is not a hierarchical, but an intertextual, rhizomic process, pulling from a vast array of interests, experiences, and influences. These feed into each other, to inform and motivate artists as creating persons in an ongoing process we call the creative act. Anytime an artist sets out to make something, they are experiencing a dynamic yet concentrated moment of energy in the chaotic cloud of creativity. To demonstrate this, I explore several ideas that inform my piece, Codex Symphonia, including musical influences, but also visual art, film, literature, philosophy, social theory, and politics. In this document, I show that the act of creating a musical work is a deeply personal process that relies heavily on the experiences and vast network of influences on the composer. With this document I look to the contextual structure(s) that point to the possibilities that a work might exist. That is to say that the composition Codex Symphonia is a specific result of an extensive network of ideas and influences not coming from a single origin—it is, in fact all of them together at the same time in a metamodernist act of reconciliation.

The following thesis documents the collaboration process behind Idle Flux, a collaboration between Samuel A. Montgomery, a graduate composer at University of North Texas, and Emily Jensen, a graduate choreographer at Texas Woman's University. Comprising an 18-minute stereo fixed media composition and choreography for seven dancers, Idle Flux seeks to challenge the traditional spatial relationship between audience members and performers through restructuring seating and stage arrangements while featuring immersive sound design in multiple venues. This thesis considers multiple sources of inspiration, including Immersive Van Gogh® Exhibit Dallas, John Jasperse's Canyon, Zoe | Juniper's BeginAgain, Francisco López's installations, Alexander Ekman's A Swan Lake, Imagine Dragons' "Enemy," Son Lux's "Dream State (Dark Day)," and Ryan Lott's dance compositions. This thesis also examines the interdependent collaborative relationship between composer and choreographer by considering the issues of autonomy and creative control, examining previous collaborative models proposed or implemented by Van Stiefel, José Limón and Norman Lloyd, John Cage and Merce Cunningham, Doris Humphrey and Norman Lloyd. In addition, this thesis discusses the creative process and foundational concepts behind the fixed media composition, including the use of sound samples, exploration of timbre through synthesizers, development of motives and musical language, and the spatialization of sound …

Metaphor and Mimesis in an Animal Soundscape serves as a supplementary document for two pieces of contemporary concert music; HOWL, for viola, saxophone and fixed media, and Pastorale for viola and fixed media. Both works quote the second movement of Antonio Vivaldi's violin concerto, La Primavera. This quotation is used to support a musical program which explores the larger topic of metaphor in music. In addition, both pieces play with contemporary trends in music including, but not limited to, acoustic ecology and spectralism.