Linda Dusman

for bass flute

ca. 6'30"

Inspired by the fires of climate change.

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Linda Dusman

for solo bass drum

ca. 6'00"

I originally planned to compose a snare drum solo for my colleague Tom Goldstein, whose imagination for all things percussion has been a source of inspiration and joy for the 20 years we’ve worked together at UMBC. But in our sessions together trying out ideas, we began talking about the extraordinary bass drum part in Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps and then began experimenting with different approaches to that drum as a solo instrument, including making it “breathe.” In the end, the bass drum seemed a better pairing with Serena Hilsinger’s epic poem Salvage, her reflections on time as expressed in the geology and people of Cape Ann, Massachusetts, where I composed the piece. I am grateful for her permission to quote passages from the opening of that poem throughout the score.

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Linda Dusman

for solo violin

ca. 9'00"

When violinist Airi Yoshioka asked me to compose a new solo violin work for her, I began to study the Paganini Caprices, monumental violin works that explore many nuances of expressive possibilities on the instrument. At the same time, my heart was breaking at the news of the worldwide immigrant crisis, especially for Syrian refugees, and especially for the children. Listening to an Arabic lullaby, I discovered it used a similar mode to the 6th Paganini Caprice. Combining the two as a metaphor for peaceful and fruitful uniting of cultures became the gestalt of the work. 

As I worked to finish the piece in the spring and summer of 2018, the United States government was separating children from their families at the southern US border. I decided to fold in another lullaby, this time from the Andes. The focus of Dream Prayer Lullaby ultimately became three-fold: a dream of a peaceful integration of peoples as they are forced from one land to another, a prayer that this dream might be realized, and a lullaby to comfort the children who suffer and wait. 

I want to thank the peoples of Arabia, the Andes, and Nigeria whose lullabies are quoted in this piece, and whose music inspired my work.

Violinist Airi Yoshioka premiered this piece in 2018 in Piacenza, Italy, and a recording of her subsequent performance is available on opening the score.

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Linda Dusman

for solo piano

ca. 8'00"

I composed the movements of Piano Interiors as meditations on natural phenomena that I correlate to inner psychological states. “Isostasy,” a state of geological equilibrium, arises from equal pressure above and below. The large boulders left behind after glacial movements constitute “glacial till.” “Susurrus,” the English word for the sound of rustling leaves, comes from the Latin verb “to whisper.” “Intrusive dikes” are discordant geological features, which form as a result of magma being injected into rock fissures. Massive flocks of starlings create “murmurations” when they twist and turn in flight, in unison, creating a visual mathematical phase transition.

A recording of this piece was made by Dr. Audrey Andrist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in November of 2015. 

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Linda Dusman

for solo piano

ca. 4'00"

Three short pieces for the intermediate pianist.

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Linda Dusman

for electric guitar

ca. 6'00"

Three short pieces for an intermediate guitarist.

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Linda Dusman

for solo piano

ca. 11'00"

Suite Sweet Errata is a set of five miniatures inspired by Joan Retallack’s book of poetry ERRATA 5UITE. Retallack uses errata slips from publishers as the source material for her poetry, which references a 5-line musical staff in its form. Each short piece takes Retallack’s “errors” as the starting point for a compositional process that I apply sometimes to fragments of pre-existing works (the Brahms Op. 118 A Major Intermezzo, for example), or that I use to create new material. This piece is dedicated to my son Sam, whose life as a 6-month-old also inspired the piece.

A recording of this piece was made by Shannon Wettstein.

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

Linda Dusman

for solo piano

ca. 6'15"

States was commissioned by the Summer Institute for Contemporary Piano Performance at New England Conservatory, Stephen Drury, Director, in 2002. The pieces are intended as tone studies for the early advanced pianist, and explore some contemporary notation techniques while reflecting on states of mind in adolescence.

A recording of this piece was made by Jacques Linder.

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Linda Dusman

for soprano and optional hand drum

ca. 7'15"

Elio: Visions of Light II is a setting of fragments of poetry by the Greek lyric poet Sappho for soprano solo with optional hand drum. It was arranged from the original Elio: Visions of Light from 1985 by request from the Serbian soprano Ana Spasic.

A recording of this piece was made by Ana Spasic.

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Sofia Kamayianni

for piano and CD

The "dreamy textured" tape (electronic process by the composer) builds on improvisations by the great soloist Manos Avarakis, playing harmonicas, recorders, and the exotic kalimba, all recorded over a period of time especially to be used in creating this piece.

Sofia Kamayianni, piano

Tim Ward - sound engineering, video production

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Click here to listen to the recording.

Sofia Kamayianni

for solo piano

This piece was commissioned by the “Living Composers Project” (London, 2007) for a concert where all the pieces had the same commitment, 5 short miniatures for solo piano. “The Mirror” was inspired by a poem with the title “It is me” written by a Greek poet-psychologist, Eirini Protopapadaki. Vagueness, detection, conflicts, shadows, contradictions, senses: each miniature follows a path related to these terms.

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Click here to view the performance notes.

Sofia Kamayianni

for cello and tape

Mia fora ki enan kero... is an abstract story that gives space to the imagination of the audience. The Storytelling Project was an eclectic mixture of contemporary music and narration – a musical performance featuring elements of theatre mixed with instruments, vocals, electronics, improvisation, original texts and movement.

Storytelling Project, Spiza Patras, European Capital of Culture, 9 Μay 2006

Sofia Kamayianni: composition, piano, percussion

Rania Kelaiditi: actress

Dina Mantzari: soprano

Irina Dimaki: violoncello

Dora Panagopoulou: composition, piano, percussion,

Joe Tornabene: composition, saxophone, actor

Tim Ward: composition, tuba, live electronics.

Click here to view the score.

Click here to watch a video of the performance.

Annea Lockwood

for solo piano

ca. 4'15"

RCSC was commissioned by Sarah Cahill as one of a set of seven short pieces by women composers in honor of Ruth Crawford Seeger. The title is a near palindrome of their names and for its pitch content the piece draws on a ten note row from the Final movement of Crawford Seeger’s second string quartet.

Video recording was performed by Ricardo Descalzo.

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Click here to watch a performance (YouTube).

Annea Lockwood

for music-box piano, and 20 helium balloons

Gone! was commissioned by pianist Jennifer Hymer.

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Annea Lockwood

for prepared piano and amplification

Ear-Walking Woman for prepared piano and exploring pianist, uses the classic piano preparations: coins (to detune the strings), screws, wiring insulation sheathing, plus bubble wrap, a rubber ball and small wooden balls, two round stones, a bowl gong, mallets, and a water glass. The piece was commissioned by Lois Svard, to whom it is dedicated and who has given many superb performances of it.

When I started experimenting with these objects on my own piano, I found that even slight changes in the method of producing a sound evoked striking variants in sonic detail, for example: rocking a stone gently between two sets of strings brings out several pitches and their overtones, iterating in unpredictable rhythms. Getting the stone to rock really hard adds higher pitches and at times the stone will turn over, setting off a new set of strings and pitches, which gradually fade away as the stone comes to rest.

The work is set up as an open-ended exploration, in which I have determined which ‘tools’ are to be used in each section, and the pianist is asked to listen closely to the sounds created by each action, and to explore further the variants which arise when s/he uses a little more pressure and change of speed, a slightly different wrist position, a different make of piano. I think of this experience as “ear-walking,” like a hiker exploring a landscape.

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Click here to listen to the recording.

Ruth Lomon

for solo organ

1. Alpha and Omega

2. Bow in the Cloud

3. When it came to pass

Commissioned in 1988 for the organ dedication of the Central United Methodist Church, Detroit, MI.

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Ruth Lomon

for solo organ

Lively with colorful registration.

Composed in 2002 for Carson Cooman, organist.

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Ruth Lomon

for solo flute

Sweet Sixteen was composed for flutist Nina Assimakopulos’ project ‘Contemporary Works for Solo Flute by American Women Composers’ in 2003. The Music for this project is literature-based; musical sounds and ideas expressed through a solo instrument. Sweet Sixteen is based on a poem by Vera Weislitzova, a poem about her 16th birthday in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

The work is in two brief movements:

1. Behind the Wall

2. The Ball

The linked video recording was performed by Emily Hinz.

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Click here to view the performance.

Jane Rigler

for solo piccolo

Red: in English this word refers to a vibrant color. Throughout different cultures in the world this color represents: blood, wine, danger, war, violence, the devil, love, embarrassment, happiness, good luck, purity, joy, etc… In the Spanish language red means “network” or “net”. If played fast enough, one can perceive the network (i.e., Morse-code-like effect) of the patterns. Perhaps there is a hidden or not so hidden meaning in them? There is no “net” for the piccoloist to fall into for safety and the performer should push to his/her extremes: feeling the sensation of being on the edge…and perhaps even the audience might feel that at any moment everything will fall apart…

Click here to view the score.

Click here to listen to the piece. (SoundCloud).

Click here for Jane Rigler's website.

Anna Rubin

for fixed media and Baroque oboe, modern oboe, or violin

ca. 5'30"

Stolen Gold, for amplified baroque oboe (or modern oboe or violin), live electronics, and digital audio is a one-movement piece. The digital audio portion was created in the Csound synthesis program and uses three classes of sounds – glissandi varying in character from subtle to long and sweeping, clouds of pointillistic sounds, and drones. The oboe weaves sinuous and melismatic melodies around these events as well as emulating some of the synthesized glissandi. Amplification of the live instrument allows it to blend with the digital audio. The harmonic language of the piece is freely atonal and based on a variety of invented modes. The oboe/violin and the synthesized sound alternate in prominence, continually shifting in whether one or the other is more dominant. At other times they seem to meld, only to suddenly deviate. The title has a two-fold personal meaning – at the time of first learning Csound, a complex Unix-based application, I struggled to find an expressive outlet through the rigors of its program language. Achieving compelling sounds felt like a triumph of both will and wilyness, as if I had stolen the treasure from a heartless machine.

The baroque oboe version of this piece has been recorded on Capstone Records (Debra Nagy) and the violin version has been recorded on Albany Records (Airi Yoshioka). The performer for the modern oboe version is Patricia Morehead. The piece has been performed many times including at the Ohio Composers of Electroacoustic Music Festival, Oberlin (2002), and the NYC International Fringe Festival (as music for Colette Searls’ puppet production, Basura, 2005). It has been featured at such festivals as the Festival de la Cité Lausanne, 2012, the Scotia Music Festival, Halifax, 2013, and as presented by "der/gelbe/klang" Ensemble, Munich (2024).

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording of the version for Baroque oboe.

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording of the version for modern oboe.

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording of the version for violin.

Click here to download performance materials.