In this essay I will closely examine the works of composer George Flynn, a Montana native, born in 1937, who later taught at both Columbia University in New York and DePaul University in Chicago. At DePaul, he was the Chair of Musicianship studies and Composition, and by that time he had gained a large following of devotees who were taken in by his work. In some ways, his work often simultaneously presents two contrasting extremes; on one side of the face, a raw, blunt expression of the human condition, often involving violent unrest- and on the other, a mesmeric, spiritual meditation of a more personal nature. In this essay, I will examine both of these contrasting facets of his music, along with a number of other ideas which the music could possibly relate to, to attempt to answer a self-imposed question: can (or should) Flynn's music be described as "experimental"?

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Walter Marchetti (1931-2015), born in Canosa di Puglia in southern Italy, was a fairly enigmatic figure even in the context of 20th century experimental music. His various experiments were not always confined to the auditory; he incorporated visual and performance-art elements in varying degrees alongside his literal music.

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Richard Wagner did not only leave us some of the most important operas ever composed, but also a tremendous wealth of writings and letters, giving us enormous insight into his life and philosophy. It is no surprise that the 1983 film Wagner, in its entirety, runs nearly nine hours- we know enough about his life that a depiction of it easily became a sweeping, grand-scale movie, no less dramatic than a full cycle of Der Ring des Nibelungen, his unprecedented four-opera epic. Wagner was no devotee of subtlety or restraint; his only goal was to bring as much fulfillment and wonder to his audiences (and especially in Wagner’s case, to himself) as possible, using a combination of multiple arts and daring levels of intensity in his work never experienced before. However, he placed special emphasis on music as a uniquely critical practice- elevating it to the point of mythical godhood, as though it had an agenda of its own.

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Igor Stravinsky’s music-writing went through what we refer to as his “Russian period”, a term with many connotations. Most broadly placed between 1907 and 1920 (although some scholars narrow that gap), it is a time period in which Stravinsky composed a number of works based on Russian ideas, with a strong focus on national folklore. However, there is still some mystery as to why Stravinsky chose to focus on this. Was the shift toward such nostalgic or perhaps nationalist music a fully conscious or deliberate one, and if so, did that inspiration strike long before his “Russian period” music was composed? When Stravinsky made such prolonged use of material inspired by (or outright native to) his homeland, why did he do so right around the time he moved away from Russia to Paris, in 1911? Was he influenced in some way by Russian nationalism in the years leading up to World War I and the Russian revolution? Did these two dramatic shifts in the Russian political landscape perhaps give him cause to end his “Russian period” of art-making?

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Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1969 science fiction novel, The Left Hand of Darkness, is awash in revolutionary feminist ideas, especially concerning the nature of gender and “gender roles” within both social and political society. In addition, because it was written during a time when the sci fi community was largely a boys’ club, the publication and popularity of the book was itself a sort of revolution for female sci fi writers.

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Lovely, beloved Mexico
If I die far from you
May they say that I'm asleep
And may they bring me back here.

-Mexico Lindo y Querido, a folk song

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Comparison of Two Soliloquies in Hamlet- "O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I", and "How all occasions do inform against me"

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