Linda Dusman

for B-flat clarinet and fixed electronic media

ca. 10'00"

I found the inspiration for Skra in the artist Mary McDonnell’s Red Line Drawings (marymcdonnellart.com). The meditative quality of these works, seemingly simple “parallel” lines, upon contemplation feel as though one may be seeing their intimacy from a great distance. I also love the beauty of their “primitiveness,” a sense of a work of art in the act of becoming itself. Creating the composition followed a similar conceptual process, as I used recordings of Mary making the drawings and the ambient sounds in her studio to accompany somewhat “primitive” sound on the clarinet—keys clicking, air passing through the instrument colored in various ways—creating the sense of a sonic landscape becoming itself. There is one basic gesture in the piece, moving from hearing pen scratches from inside the paper (from recordings made using contact mics) gradually to the external environment in and outside of the artist’s studio. I am grateful to Alan Wonneberger for technical assistance in making this piece, and to E. Michael Richards for his imaginative work on extended techniques for the clarinet, another important inspiration for the work.

The piece was recorded by E. Michael Richards.

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.

Linda Dusman

electroacoustic (2-channel and 5.1 surround available)

ca. 6'15"

magnificat 4: Ida Ida is the final work in my magnificat series, which I began in 2001 around the time of the terrorist attacks in New York City and completed on the eve of the Obama inauguration. The composition reflects back on the darkness of this period in American history amid hope for the future. I quote passages from Gertrude Stein’s novels The Making of Americans and Ida, and include quotations from my own composition An Unsubstantial Territory (Lisa Cella, alto flute, and Jane Rigler, piccolo) to evoke a dreamlike collage of emerging self-awareness. Special thanks to Wendy Salkind, Susan McCully, and Philip Maki, performers, and Alan Wonneberger, who collaborated on the surround mix and was the mastering engineer for the piece.

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Linda Dusman

for violin and electronics

ca. 11'30"

My music in recent years comprises a weaving together of disparate elements. Commissioned by Airi Yoshioka as a work for violin and electronics, I began contemplating magnificat 3 during the US occupation of Iraq, and began composing it as the 17-year cicadas emerged during the spring of 2004, with final revisions in 2005. This composition is the third in a series of works that began as a reflection on the Virgin Mary’s text: “My soul doth magnify the lord,” but which were interrupted by world events beginning with September 1, 2001. I realized that “magnificat 3” was a lament late one night when I was working on the piece and my 8-year-old son woke screaming from a nightmare in which “the war in Iraq came here.” Afterward I realized how much world events had been weighing on me as well. I imagined how much worse, and more frequent, must be the nightmares of the children in Iraq, whose parents cannot shelter them from the constant violence there. magnificat 3 in the end is a lament for all children who are victims of violence.

This recording of this piece is by Airi Yoshioka.

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.