Abstract:
The creation of music cross-culturally is a rich, cutting-egde field in contemporary music
studies. This thesis examines the practice of cross-cultural music composition through the lens
of the tradition of Western art music and my own perspective as a composer representing that
tradition. This portfolio comprises original compositions for various musical instrumentations
including Indonesian gamelan and Chinese yangqin, and which utilise a range of technical and
contextual approaches that are described in the thesis. Reference is made to historic precedents
(mainly twentieth-century) including a case study of one composer (Lou Harrison), in order to
give a context to my own work and musical thinking.
