- What Remains (2019)
-
Linda Dusman
for orchestra
ca. 11'15"
What Remains constitutes the second piece in a series of works embodying the concept of pis aller—“paths of last resort,” for me a fitting metaphor for our time of great immigrations, political extremes, and sudden local disruptive violence. What Remains explores specifically the human trait of obsession that often drives individuals to this final recourse, and that path’s potential for leading toward both great good and great evil.
What remains at its end? The air we breathe, the lives that air enables, our shared potential for good, and the possibility of an arrival at that end, rather than its opposite. What Remains stands as a reminder of humanity’s collective responsibility to walk a path away from obsessive violence and ugliness toward intentional peace and beauty.
The recording heard when viewing the score was recorded by the John Hopkins Symphony conducted by Jay Gaylin.
- Lake, Thunder (2015)
-
Linda Dusman
for clarinet in B-flat and trombone
ca. 9'30"
An I Ching hexagram entitled Lake, Thunder describes energy in a state of rest. According to this ancient text, thunder drops below the lake in winter to restore itself. As an analogue, this composition explores the concept of evoking energy without movement via the color changes in clarinet “same note” trills; the trombone as a “natural” instrument, without equal tempered adjustments; and the rhythm of beating patterns that result from coupling equal and non-equal tempered unisons. An unusual “tuning” etude for this unusual duo results. The piece was composed partially while in residence at the Gardarev Foundation in Point Reyes, California, and I am grateful for that time as well as for the suggestions from Patrick Crossland and E. Michael Richards about the special techniques employed.
The recording heard when viewing the score was performed by E. Michael Richards, clarinet, and Patrick Crossland, trombone.
- Solstice (1997)
-
Linda Dusman
for wind ensemble
ca. 7'15"
Solstice was commissioned by the Hanover, Pennsylvania Southwestern High School Symphonic Band, Carey Crumling, director, in 1997. The title refers to my inspiration for the piece, which I found in the often turbulent weather changes that characterize the change from season to season. As a larger metaphor this reflects the emotional turbulence that characterizes the change from childhood to adulthood, which I expressed in the often bi-tonal language of the piece.
A recording of the piece is available on opening the score, performed by New England Conservatory Wind Ensemble, with William Drury, Director.
- Dance (2012)
-
Sofia Kamayianni
for youth symphony orchestra
ca. 3'00"
This piece was premiered in 2015 by the UMBC Symphony under the direction of E. Michael Richards, and the video recording is linked below.
Click here to view a performance (YouTube).
- The Steelworkers (2012)
-
Sofia Kamayianni
for 3 trumpets, trombone, and percussion
ca. 8'30"
"The Steelworkers" was composed in the Autumn of 2012 and was inspired by the nine-month long Greek steelworkers strike that was then underway. This was a historical strike which will be remembered, among other reasons, for taking place at such a unique moment, in Greece being forced to enter the memorandum of understanding that bring extreme and inhuman measures into a society that was in a state of shock. In the work I tried to express my feelings and thoughts arising from this major conflict, the individual issues and fluctuations which were to remain with us for such a long time, and the images in my mind of the workers inside the factory. The steelworkers fought throughout all these months with incomparable strength, resistance, self-denial, collectivity and solidarity - with huge costs to their own lives that were to become evident for those who continued to followed the story in the years that followed.
Click here to listen to the piece (YouTube).
- Thousand Year Dreaming (1990)
-
Annea Lockwood
for oboe/english horn, A clarinet/contrabass clarinet, two tenor trombones, percussion, four didjeridu, voice, and slide projections
To me the didjeridu is the sound of the earth’s core, pulsing serenely - an expression of the life force. When I started working on the score images from the Lascaux cave paintings came to mind as in some way connected with that resonating pulsing. Dated to the Aurignacian Paleolithic period (ca 17,000 BC), they contain recurring symbols such as checkerboards and tridents which are not yet well understood. However, the intense awe and love with which the animal images have been created are vividly clear. Like sound, they also manifest the life force.
From discussions of Korean musical traditions with composer Jin Hi Kim came ideas about cyclically unfolding structures which helped greatly as I tried to work out a natural shape for these sounds and images - four sections with the following subtitles: breathing and dreaming; the Chi stirs; floating in mid-air; in full bloom.
- Requiem (1977)
-
Ruth Lomon
for flute, B-flat clarinet/bass clarinet, bassoon, trumpets in C, trombone/bass trombone, solo soprano, and SATB chorus
SONGS FROM A REQUIEM are inserts in the setting of a Requiem Mass which Ruth Lomon composed in 1977 and dedicated to the memory of her sister. The Mass proper is set for chorus (SATB) accompanied by trumpets and trombones. The songs, settings of poems she wrote between 1970 and 1972, are orchestrated for soprano, flute, clarinet, bass clarinet and bassoon. The version for soprano with piano accompaniment was written in 1982.
The premiere of the entire Requiem took place in Boston, February 22, 1997, performed by Choro Allegro under the direction of David Hodgkins.
- Solstice (1978)
-
Ruth Lomon
for brass quartet (two trumpets, trombone, bass trombone)
Composed to exorcise the magpies pecking the metal strips on the roof of my cottage at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, Taos.
- Equinox (1978)
-
Ruth Lomon
for brass quartet (two trumpets in C, trombone, bass trombone)
Commissioned by Francis J. Cooke, Director of Music, Lexington Unitarian Church to accompany the first performance of the Requiem choruses.
- .breathing.bones.mobile.mind. (2003)
-
Patricia Ann Repar
Solo Trombone and Fixed Media
ca. 14'00"
"The main misconception about the bones, then, is that they are made up of dead tissue."
-- Dr. D.R. Johnson, Centre for Human Biology
Jawbone chatters away, singin' the blues of ocean and rock,
skeletal bits of earth
imprinted with birds and star beings.
Sara sings the joik--banned but alive--her Saami, Lapplander voice
chanting essences of someone or something
ever changing, no beginning on end.
Mourning Dove sings the story of Coyote who got down safely
by turning himself first into a pine needle--falling fast--
and then into a leaf floating gently to the ground.
I dance to Julia and Debbie sings Danny Boy,
our bones compressing and stretching
pulsing with and responding to neuropeptides, cellular receptors, and
memory upon memory-alive-
and enmeshed with the songs of Jawbone and Sara and Mourning Dove.
- Devil's Punchbowl (1993)
-
Lois V Vierk
for orchestra
This piece was inspired by the twisted sandstone canyon in the southern California high desert in Angeles National Park called "Devil's Punchbowl". At this exquisite site you are always aware of both extreme beauty and also danger. Descending into the canyon the trail is rugged, rocky, and treacherous, and the head is scorching. But rising up from the deep gorge are steep, magnificent mountains with their cold streams and sweet smelling pine trees. The vistas are grand. Far in the distance, soft shapes and hues of the landscape melt into one another.
Devil's Punchbowl unfolds slowly. Musical materials are constantly developed, pushing the work forward from a relatively simple beginning to its dynamic and colorful climax. The piece opens with languorous brass slides downward. String phrases answer the brass, and woodwinds add color and wisps of melody. Gradually the strings begin their long ascending glissando, sweeping the woodwinds up to their highest register, ending the first section.
Immediately strings and low woodwinds enter with agitated multi-color, ever-changing trills and tremolos. Various instruments combine to form sinewy melodic shapes which creep slowly upward. Percussion becomes more pronounced. Brass adds rhythm and harmony. Each phrase builds on the one before as, little by little, the music becomes faster, louder, and rhythmically emphatic. Trombones and celli playing fortissimo glissandi in the lowest register propel the piece to its full orchestral climax. After the high energy of the climax the music returns briefly to the lyrical mood of the opening, ending gently.
Devil's Punchbowl was commissioned by the Bang On A Can Festival and the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra. The commissioning of this work was made possible by a grant fro the Meet The Composer/Reader's Digest Commissioning Program, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund.
The recording of Devil's Punchbowl is of the premiere, given by Victoria Bond conducting the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra on March 21, 1994. They performed the piece beautifully.
Below are two versions of the score. First is the final version, incorporating several sets of edits to the orchestration made after the premiere and over subsequent years, and which is dated 2009. The major changes to orchestration, emphasizing an expanded role for trombones, etc., are marked above the staves of the score.
The second is the original score as used by Victoria Bond in 1994 (with numerous indications marked for my first set of edits).
Click here to view the revised score.
Click here to view the original score.
- TUSK (1981)
-
Lois V Vierk
for 18 trombones
TUSK was written in 1981. During the '80s much of my music was for ensembles of multiples of the same instrument. Besides this piece for 18 trombones, I composed works for 8 cellos, for 8 violins, 6 trumpets, 5 electric guitars, 8 ryuteki flutes (bamboo flutes from the Japanese Gagaku court music orchestra), etc. These like-instrument ensembles allow a wide variety of timbral, dynamic and rhythmic nuance to be heard. I've always found the sound of this type of ensemble deeply beautiful and powerful. In these pieces, two or more instruments act together to form one voice or "sound shape", which in turn interacts with other sound shapes. There are three groups of six instruments each in this work. I create what I like to call a Big Instrument, from the sound of the entire ensemble together--a giant trombone consisting of 18 parts. TUSK was commissioned by California Institute of the Arts, Contemporary Music Festival 1981.
Recorded live in concert by Miles Anderson and trombone ensemble, conducted by Lois V Vierk, at the 1981 Cal Arts Festival, California Institute of the Arts.
- Jagged Mesa (1990)
-
Lois V Vierk
for 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, and 2 bass trombones
This 22-minute work unfolds slowly, and it gradually builds in intensity to a dynamic and expansive lcimax. At first, languid descending glissandi flow acress the space from choir to choir. Little by little the materials develop, pitch relationships become more complex and faster moving, the work becomes rhythmic, glissandi get fster and change direction, the register expands. At its climax the piece settles into arpeggios acress the range of the instruments, against fortissimo chords and bass trombone pedal tones.
Jagged Mesa was premiered in 1990 at St Mark's Church in the Bowery, on New York City's lower East Side, with a mdern dance choreographed by Risa Jaroslow. St. Mark's Church is a big, cavernous space, with balcony around the top, and a beautiful modern dance floor below. There is a long reverberation time in the church. The piece was composed with this in mind. Brass players were in the balcony--3 players on each side--and the composer conducted from below, on the same level as the dancers. Sounds in the piece are written to overlap. The slowly-moving tones and glissandi blend and resonate in the space.
Recording is by:
Gary Trosclair, trumpet
Bruce Eidem, trombone
Christopher Banks, bass trombone
from CD:
Tzadik 7056 "Lois V Vierk: River Beneath the River"
Click here to view the CD on Tzadik.