The opera, The Pilgrim's Progress, was written by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1949. "The Seven Songs" are analyzed for performance, examining the elements of music and text of the songs, including melody, harmony, form, vocal line and accompaniment, with the intent of forming conclusions in regard to their usefulness as singular selections, or as a group, for performance.

Nyiragongo is a composition for large orchestra. The title is taken from Mount Nyiragongo, an active volcano in the Virunga Mountains of east central Africa. The composition is in one movement and the performance time is approximately eight to nine minutes.

This symphony is a representation of the composer's philosophy of life, which includes a belief in a pre-existent life (Beginnings), a mortal life (Searchings and Wanderings), and a life after death (Return Home). Three out of four of the cyclic elements in the Symphony are symbolic. Theme one represents the influence for good which emanates from a living God; motive one represents the influence for evil, or the Devil; motive two represents the influence of Christ. All three of these influences were present in the pre-existence, they are present in earth life and in the life after death, where good will ultimately triumph over evil. Motive three is found in both first and third movements, but has no symbolic meaning.

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra consists of three movements. The whole work follows a general character of Fast -- Slow -- Fast; but within each movement are sections with contrasting tempi. The performance time approximately eighteen minutes.

Three Units is a symphony in three movements: fast-slow-fast. The general shape or large form of each unit is noticeably different from its counterparts, although all three exhibit a common feature: an evolutionary process in which one or more musical genres form the basis for the entire movement.

This thesis is a musical setting of the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Mass: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. It is scored for a soprano soloist, a four-part chorus (SATB), percussion requiring one player (orchestral bells, vibraphone, and chimes), piano, and pipe organ. The text is taken from the traditional Latin and its English translation, the Greek (in the case of "Kyrie eleison") and verse taken from scripture--John 1:1, John 1:5, and Revelation 1:17-18--as translated in the Revised Standard Version Bible. These verses are woven into the musical fabric of the Kyrie and the Gloria and are frequently overlayed with the text of the Mass itself. The text is treated freely with some cyclic treatment of textual and thematic material.

This quartet is comprised of two wind instruments, flute and clarinet, and two stringed instruments, violin and violoncello. This unusual combination affords a wide variety of colors in both melody and chord-voicing that are impossible with an "unmixed" quartet.

The structure of the present work is clearly described in the foregoing definition. Consisting of fourteen movements of varying length, it is primarily a vocal work for soprano, tenor, and baritone soloists, mixed chorus and an orchestra of moderate size.

A set of variations can be any length and contain any number of variations. The same set of variations also can be fashioned to resemble any musical form. On this basic premise, Theme and Variations for Wind Ensemble was written. It is a continuous one movement composition. There is a statement of a theme with five subsequent variations.

Missa Salve Regina, a five movement work, is approximately twenty minutes in duration. The work is a setting of the Ordinary of the Mass in Latin with additional text in the vernacular drawn from the writings of Miguel de Unamuno. The composition is scored for four speaking soloists (SATB), mixed chorus (SATB, percussion (player 1: tam tam, three suspended cymbal, bass drum, three tom-toms, glockenspiel, maracas, and marimba), and digital synthesizer optionally on tape. The Missa Salve Regina is concerned with the spiritual implications of the mass and its ritual. The music is composed for both concert presentation and use within the liturgy and deals with the conflict between faith and reason in the human mind, discussed at length, by Unamuno.

Devadasi is an abstraction of primitive dance rites for nine dancers and five percussionists. Though based on fertility rites and religious temple ceremonies, no actual representation of events is intended. It it approximately sixteen minutes and twenty seconds long, and is composed in six sections. Detailed choreography for the dancers is not included, but entrance and exit cues are shown, and the character of each dance is suggested by the music. Suggestion for lighting and costuming are also included in the score.

The composition consists of two movements: Adagio and Moderato. The first movement is mono-thematic, and is divided into three sections. The second movement offers contrast with the first by establishing an immediate tempo, dynamic, and color change.

Hegira is a work for full orchestra making use of piano as well as an augmented percussion section. The title, taken from Mohammed's flight to Mecca in 622 A.D., did suggest certain directions during the compositional process, but it does not imply a specific program for the music. The compositional process employed many techniques, including thematic transformation, serialization, rotation, contrapuntal textures, as well as the intuitive juxtaposition of material.

In Memoriam H. W. Reese is written for chamber orchestra and small mixed chorus, in honor of the composer's father, Hardy W. Reese (March 22, 1926-Nov. 23, 1982). The piece is written in one continuous movement with a total duration of approximately fifteen minutes. Within the work there are three distinct sections, each on texts dealing with a different stage in the process of reconciliation with death.

The composition was written as a laboratory experience in contemporary music especially for the Symphonic Wind Ensemble of the Skyline Career Development Center in Dallas, Texas. Based upon the Greek myth of Icarus, the movements are entitled, "Imprisoned", "Flight" , and "The Fall." The approximate performance time is 17 minutes, 45 seconds.

The composition is in one movement for cello and two-channel tape, requiring approximately twelve minutes for performance. The character of the work is aggressive and decisive in nature, with areas of repose occurring only at the beginning and before the conclusion. The title "concertante" is used to describe a concert-piece in which each of the two instruments.

The Variations on a Theme by Shostakovich is scored for an orchestra of 3 flutes, 3 oboes, 2 bassoons, contra-bassoon, 4 horns, 3 C trumpets, 3 trombones, harp, harpischord, piano, percussion and strings. The entire work is approximately 17 minutes in duration. The subject for the Variations comes from the Fifteenth Symphony of Shostakovich, last movement. There are many allusions to the writing of Shostakovich in terms of gesture, orchestration, and harmonic structure.

The title is intended to suggest that the work expresses the composer's innermost thoughts and feelings, even though these thoughts and feelings have no concrete realizations or programmatic connotations. It is precisely because of their abstractness that the thoughts and feelings are expressed in music rather than in words or some other concrete mode of communication. The total performance time is approximately twenty minute. The individual movements last about ten, four and one-half and five and one-half minutes, respectively.

The Serenade for Viola and Orchestra is a one-movement composition of three connecting sections with two main themes of contrasting character. The "relatedness" of the sections does not depend on common thematic material, but rather on a system whereby motives evolve out of the thematic material and from elements in preceding sections. The sonorous timbre of the viola is exploited and becomes the central tessitura for the piece. The title is representative of the lyrical nature of the composition as a whole, especially the first and third section.

The first movement material is presented by the ensemble and subsequently developed by the saxophone. A majority of the saxophone passages are supported by the ensemble with unaccompanied solo passages kept to a minimum. The various sections are based more on differences in pitch and rhythm than orchestration and harmony.

It's All in the Cards is an instrumental chamber work consisting of three movements for ten percussionists encircling the audience. The total duration of the piece is approximately thirteen minutes. Much of the rhythmic and melodic material, as well as the form, was determined by shuffling and dealing a standard deck of fifty-two cards. Other computational procedures have been used to achieve the effect of sound moving from one spatial location to another, an effect on which must be regarded as an essential factor in performance of the work.

Symphony Number Five is a composition in three movements for orchestra. It is characterized by an economy of materials and a clarity of presentation of those materials. Further, the materials are expressed in a simplistic manner which avoids intricate textural content and complex melodic and harmonic structures. The symphony was chosen as a pattern of structure for this composition since it represents a microcosm of the history and development of musical style since 1760.

The compositional goals strived for in this work are (1) to unify the past and present, (2) to present a rhythmically simple but harmonically complex use of the voices, (3) to explore the timbral complexities of voices and instruments, (4) to explore rhythmic changes without changing meters, (5) to integrate the orchestra and chorus so as to produce one musical entity rather than two opposing groups, (6) to produce a work that is both practicable in performance and contemporary in spirit.

This theater piece is based on a story by John Updike. It is scored for baritone soloist, chorus, real-time electronic sounds, and a small orchestra (woodwinds 1111, brass 2121, 2 percussionists, organ, handbells, strings 33221). The work also includes actors, dancers, video projections, 35mm slide projections, and special lighting effects. The story opens with the moving of fourteen-year old David and his family is to live on the farm formerly owned by David's maternal grandfather. David becomes disturbed when he reads H.G. Wells account of the life of Jesus Christ, He reacts to this account because it is contradictory in spirit to what he has been taught at church and at home. The story deals primarily with David's attempts to reconcile these conflicts in his mind.