I completed my MMus at the Australian Institute of Music in November 2018. The programme was in three stages:

  1.   Graduate Certificate: 5000 word thesis and a 15-minute composition

  2. Graduate Diploma: 5000 word thesis and a 20 minute composition

  3. Master of Music: 10000 word thesis and a 60 minute composition  

My three theses were:

  1. Graduate Certificate: a study of György Ligeti’s Lux Aeterna

  2. Graduate Diploma: a study of Carlo Gesualdo’s Morro Lasso

  3. Master of Music: Mass Subversion: a Comparative Study of the Textual Interpretations in the Requiems of Ligeti and Duruflé.  

You would have thought I’d be right at home with the composing bit - I have written music for some pretty big and reasonably high profile situations – although, like any artist, I am always nervous about how it will be received. However, nothing is more terrifying than handing in a composition assignment and waiting for the assessment results. A bad review I can cope with, but the thought of a low grade is far more terrifying…Anyway, the music I composed for the three stages comprised of:

  1. Graduate Certificate: Lux Aeterna for six voices and organ

  2. Graduate Diploma: a book of modern madrigals entitled Tribes

  3. Master of Music: two separate projects; Layla & Majnun, an adaptation of an ancient Persian story and In the Land of the 3 and the 2, a book of solo piano music.

  You can hear some of the finished pieces below: