Teaching

In additon to giving composition masterclasses, Param Vir is available to teach and lecture on the following areas of musical technique. Lectures would include detailed harmonic and formal analysis where appropriate.

Single Lectures

Single Lectures 60 – 90 minutes:

  • Cave of Luminous Mind: An Introduction to my latest orchestral work
  • Anatomy of an Opera: Snatched by the Gods
  • Anatomy of an Opera: Broken Strings
  • Anatomy of an Opera: Black Feather Rising
  • The Mask of the Extraordinary
  • My Orchestral Works
  • Two works by Witold Lutoslawski – Mi-Parti and Paroles Tissées
  • Motivic Analysis of Berg’s Altenberg Lieder, Op. 4 (3 lectures)
  • Harmonic spaces in Jonathan Harvey’s Song Offerings
  • An Introduction to the Music of Jonathan Harvey (in preparation)
  • An Introduction to Jonathan Harvey’s opera WAGNER DREAM (in preparation)
  • My musical works with Tagore texts
  • Constructing Harmonic Fields – a practical approach
  • The structure and use of trichords, tetrachords and hexachords in motivic organization
  • An Introduction to Messiaen’s Modes of Limited Transposition
  • A study of GAGAKU from Messiaen’s Sept Haikai
  • The Charm of Impossibilities: Pitch and rhythmic structures in the first movement of Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps
  • Harmonic Partition Techniques: Intervals, Sets, Modes, Fields
  • Two works by Oliver Knussen: Ophelia Dances and Two Organa
  • Schoenberg’s Opus 19 and the Technique of Developing Variation
  • Schoenberg’s Vorgefühle, Opus 16 No. 1
  • Introduction to Stravinsky’s Variations: Aldous Huxley in Memoriam and his technique of Transposition/Rotation of ordered sets
  • Development, transformation, expansion: one movement from Boulez’s Notations

1 Week

1 week courses:

  • Vocal music of Alban Berg
  • An Introduction to the Music of Jonathan Harvey (in preparation)
  • Song Writing – approach to prosody and declamation
  • Inroduction to the music of Olivier Messiaen and Elliott Carter – a practical technique based approach for composers

7 Week

7 week courses:

  • Sixteenth Century Counterpoint, including the composition of two part Motets (not species based)
  • Sixteenth Century Counterpoint, including the composition of three part Motets
  • Motivic Composition, focussed on the early works of the 2nd Viennese School (“free atonal”)
  • Song Writing – approach to prosody and declamation
  • Models in Contemporary Music: through the study of seminal scores. Includes study of specific works by Stravinsky, Boulez, Messiaen, Ligeti, Lutoslawski, Knussen, Maxwell Davies, Harvey

12 Week

Full semester 12 week courses (Advanced Theory and Composition):

  • The Music of Alban Berg, with analysis of seminal works, including sections of Wozzeck
  • The Music of Elliott Carter
  • The Music of Olivier Messiaen
  • Modern Orchestration Technique for large ensembles
  • Contemporary British Opera
  • Creating a chamber opera – a collaborative process involving composer and librettist
  • The Music of Igor Stravinsky: an analytical survey

Orchestral Works