Kaolin, suite from 'Sfumato'

Kaolin, Suite from Sfumato is a composition in three movements taken from Sfumato, an interdisciplinary, collaborative work incorporating sculpture, digital animations and projections, choreography and electroacoustic music. The decision to craft a suite from Sfumato came from the desire to give the music its own life apart from the performance space and streamline it so that its formal elements, such as the development of timbres across movements, could be more apparent.; The work consists mainly of sequenced tracks of samples and synthesized sounds that were converted to digital audio and extensively processed using digital signal processing software applications. Important sound sources include: a metal object jingled inside a ceramic vase; a glass bottle struck with a rubber-tipped hammer; and stones dropped in water. The sounds created from these sources are used to structure the work as a whole, especially those crafted from the ceramic vase.; Because music that is Kaolin, Suite from Sfumato exists as a sound recording rather than a notated score, a recording of the work on compact disk is provided and can be found in a pocket at the rear of this dissertation. The documentation provided in this dissertation consists of the original MIDI track data supplemented by several charts that detail digital signal processing and mixing, equalization and reverb settings, and sample program assembly. In addition, a performance score is provided for the second movement, because it has parts for live musicians (soprano and viola).