Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation
5-2025
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Degree Name
M.M.
Department
Music Composition
Degree Program
Music with a concentration in Music Composition, MM
Committee Chair
Wołek, Krzysztof
Committee Member
Ritz, John
Committee Member
Speck, Frederick
Author's Keywords
Composition; song cycle; chamber music
Abstract
Inspired by Gnostic myth, biosemiotic forms and Basilides of Alexandria's Seven Sermons to The Dead, Gastropoda tells a creation myth of the opposite yet complementary processes of birth and consumption. The subject of the myth, an unnamed Gastropod, is thrust from the formless ocean to a land more differentiated; full of boundaries and obstacles which obscure the source from wence it came. Through communion with the darkest and lightest aspects of this world, a worm-like entity known as Abraxas, the Gastropod follows two separate yet simultaneous sequences of events that lead to the same essential outcome. One is the path of conception, gestation, egg bearing and emerging. The other is one of consumption, digestion, expulsion and detritophagy. At the end of both sequences, one Gastropod becomes many Gastropoda; hosted in either its newly hatched kin or the scavengers that feast on its excreted corpse.
Recommended Citation
Krueger, Jonathan, "Gastropoda a song cycle in 7 movements for 10 musicians." (2025). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 4582.
Retrieved from https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd/4582
