Doctoral Public Lecture | Rashaan Allwood

Student Name: Rashaan Allwood
Program: Music – Composition
Thesis Title: Streams of Self-Consciousness: A Modular Multimedia Composition

Abstract:

Streams of Self-Consciousness is a modular, multimedia composition exploring the intersection of identity, cultural heritage, and experimental performance. Combining original music, filmed interviews, ambient footage, and improvisation, the work functions as a flexible framework for storytelling that can be reshaped with each new realization. Central to the piece are three composed art songs for soprano, available with either piano or orchestral accompaniment, and three contrasting improvisation scores: one using graphic and rhythmic notation, one based on intuitive text instructions, and one modeled after a popular music-style chart. These diverse approaches invite interdisciplinary collaboration and adaptability across different performers and contexts.

The score includes prefatory texts that guide the work’s interpretation and performance, including a General Preface, Filmmaker’s Preface, and Musicians’ Preface. A connection scheme outlines how the various components, including composed songs, improvisation scores, and visual media, can be assembled into different realizations. Additional materials such as interview excerpts, ambient footage cues, and text prompts invite performers and filmmakers to integrate a complete visual component that reflects their own cultural narratives within each performance. 

This dissertation outlines the conceptual and cultural foundations of the project, analyzes the compositional strategies behind the three improvisation idioms and song settings, and discusses the philosophical motivations for its open form. Rooted in diasporic experience and performance art traditions, Streams of Self-Consciousness acts both as a personal archive and a generative toolkit, designed to support evolving stories of identity.

Please contact Audrey Yardley-Jones, Graduate Program Assistant, Don Wright Faculty of Music, for further information: ayardley@uwo.ca