Dorothy Chang

No abstract available.

Diagnosis: Diabetes is an interactive one-act chamber opera for five singers (soprano, mezzo-soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone) and an instrumental quintet (flute/alto flute, B-flat Clarinet/bass clarinet, violin, cello, and piano). It is approximately 60 minutes in duration with seven scenes and no intermission.The opera tells the story of Charlie and his relationship with his diabetes. After Charlie’s parents take full responsibility for his diabetes management in childhood, the audience influences the outcome of several scenes by answering the narrator’s multiple-choice questions. The audience’s success in answering these questions dictates whether the following scene has a good or bad outcome. The music of Diagnosis: Diabetes serves to facilitate the posing of questions (from scripted musicians to live audience) and the implementation of multiple dramatic outcomes in a live performance scenario.

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Hover is an experimental music theatre work for seven singers (mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, soprano, alto, tenor, bass) and a quintet consisting of Bb clarinet (doubling on bass clarinet), electric guitar (doubling on classical guitar), percussion (vibraphone, glockenspiel, suspended cymbals, high-hat, triangle, tamtam, snare, toms, and bass drum), viola (doubling on violin), and double bass. It is approximately 90 minutes in duration. Act I is approximately 40 minutes and is comprised of four scenes; Act II is approximately 30 minutes and is comprised of two scenes; Act III is approximately 20 minutes and is comprised of three scenes. An intermission is possible between Acts I and II. Hover is the story of one woman – The Dreamer – and her attempt to come to terms with a traumatic event that happened one year ago – an accidental waking during surgery. In a flashback memory of the event, she dreams she meets two important men from two different centuries – The Traveler and The Diver – who have also experienced moments where their bodies have performed seemingly impossible feats. All three face profound skepticism in the telling of their own stories and in trying to cope begin to dismantle cultural myths to prove that their personal stories are true and hold weight. The music of Hover supports this action by assimilating many styles, melodic motives, harmonic devices, and textural approaches into one language that reflects the multifaceted nature of the narrative.

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Passenger is a multi-version musical composition of approximately 40 minutes in length scored for string quartet. The formal design of the piece involves reconfiguring its large-scale form each time it is performed. During any given performance the piece is an uninterrupted and continuous flow of music, but its distinct seven-segment structure allows a reordering of the music’s segments in a chosen sequence where each segment is played once, and only once, starting with a fixed opening segment. Once the order of the segments is selected each segment connects to the next through a series of overlapping transitions that present an unbroken listening experience. The total number of possible variations for Passenger is 720. Comparatively, each possible rendering of the piece offers a wide degree of change in order to demonstrate how impermanent large-scale form operates as a compositional technique. Its changing structure was created with the intention of promoting a variety of readings of the composition’s musical content by altering the chronological placement of large sections of music. Subsequent listening experiences will explore alternative pathways with which to cover familiar musical material and contribute to the music’s overall interpretation. The goal of this project is to rethink the role of form, and to use it as an agent of change capable of generating new and expressive methods of music making and listening.

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