Creating a personal music style by fusion in the contemporary era — A study of the music of David Lang and Cheng Zhang

Abstract

Searching for a personal style in the medium of new music composition is one of the most difficult challenges composers face today. Many more musical genres, styles and attitudes have emerged in the last century, more so than in any other period in history. As well as new ideas emerging from advances in music technology and increased exposure to music from other cultures, the art music composer towards the later part of the twentieth century was enabled with a vast array of musical styles from the past and the present. Fusion of styles and the re-reading of the art of the past became in the postmodern artistic environment one of many viable ways of discovering and creating new music. Fusion of style is the central tool I have used in the composition of this portfolio and I support it with select examples that have inspired my thinking. To help create fresh composition styles and music characteristics, I have undertaken extensive research about style fusion over the last few years. Therefore, this dissertation focuses on establishing a clear and logical conceptive mode to create new musical styles step by step in the spirit of style fusion. I expect to be able to use it to create new music styles, or at least, to compose some music with innovative characteristics. Firstly, two pieces composed by American composer David Lang will be analysed in this dissertation by reason of the fact that Lang is regarded as a composer renowned for style fusion. Through this study of compositions of Lang, a method of style fusion will be summarized from the analysis and used in my composition. New pieces I have composed with this method are attached and analysed as examples in the final chapters. These pieces will fuse styles from Lang and other composition styles in different periods and genres.