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- Miss Furr and Miss Skeene (2012)
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Linda Dusman
for narrator and percussion
ca. 15'15"
The text used in the piece was written by Gertrude Stein.
The linked recording was performed by Wendy Salkind, narrator, and Tom Goldstein, percussion.
Click here to listen to the recording. (YouTube)
- What Remains (2019)
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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.
- and numberless quotidian happenings... (2021)
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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.
- Solstice (1997)
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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.
- Mother of Exiles (2019)
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Linda Dusman
for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, double dass, harp, percussion, and piano
ca. 9'30"
What must our Lady Liberty be thinking? Staunchly guarding the NewYork harbor, sending a beacon of light still, but now a museum, what are her sonic memories of mothers singing to comfort their children? Mother of Exiles, your huddled masses are now at our southern borders, where there is a wall instead of a beacon of hope. How do we create a more perfect union, when we are faced so dramatically with the imperfections of our past and our present? What would that union sound like?
I want to express my appreciation to the cultures that created the lullabies quoted in this work: Syria, Nigeria, and the Andes region. My hope is that our shared concerns of caring for the young might bring these disparate voices together to forge a sustainable future. Any royalties resulting from performances of this work will be donated to Unicef, the United Nations agency for children.
The performance was recorded by the Inscape Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Richard Scerbo.
- O Star Spangled Stripes (2004)
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Linda Dusman
for piano and percussion
ca. 6'15"
The e.e. cummings poem “next to of course god America i” sourced O Star Spangled Stripes, which begins from parodies of American patriotic songs (including Stars and Stripes Forever, Johnny Comes Marching Home, It’s a Grand Old Flag, and The Star Spangled Banner). In the piece, I created a system for performers to progress through the musical material based in oppositional ideas of “democracy” and “advancing freedom,” two terms touted by the George W. Bush administration as hallmarks of US foreign policy. “Democracy” in its Greek origins translates loosely to “people working together,” while “advancing freedom” seems to me to be completely individualistic, perhaps even narcissistic, in pursuing a definition of freedom with disregard for others. To begin the piece, each player decides whether he will begin by cooperating with the other player (“true democracy”), or by disregarding the other player—exhibiting a self-involved narcissism (”advancing freedom”). The performers change their modes of ensemble playing asynchronously throughout the piece, and, in an ultimately non-utopian gesture, create a chaotic mix reflecting the American political system and its potential impact on world events.
This recording of this piece is by the Hoffmann-Goldstein Duo (Paul Hoffmann, piano; Tom Goldstein, percussion) and can be heard when viewing the score.
- Elio: Visions of Light (1985)
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Linda Dusman
for soprano, flute, cello, piano, percussion
ca. 7'30"
Elio: Visions of Light is a setting of fragments of poetry by the Greek lyric poet Sappho for soprano, flute, cello, piano, and percussion. It reflects my memories of the light in Greece during my travels there.
This recording of this piece is by Ana Spasic, soprano, and members of the Conservatorio "G. Nicolini" chamber music program in Piacenza, Italy, and can be heard when viewing the score.
- magnificat 1: variations (2001)
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Linda Dusman
for alto flute, bass clarinet, and marimba
ca. 9'00"
I composed magnificat 1, a set of continuous variations of a unison melodic line, to celebrate the founding of UMBC’s resident contemporary music ensemble Ruckus. One of the inspirations for the piece is the Virgin Mary’s opening phrase of her song to Elizabeth: “My soul doth magnify the Lord,” in which she recognizes her soul not as the essence of herself, but as a lens for something much greater. The events of September 11, 2001 also resonate in this work, as I had devoted that day to composing this piece. I sat in shock in front of the television that day reminded that terrorists also imagine their souls as lenses of God, with devastating results. As a result, magnificat 1 also incorporates the surreal state of the fall of 2001: a yearning for clarity amidst twists of distortion.
The recording of this piece is by the RUCKUS Ensemble (Lisa Cella, alto flute; E. Michael Richards, bass clarinet; Tom Goldstein, marimba), and can be heard when viewing the score.
- Dance (2012)
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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)
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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).
- I Have Done With Phrases (2010)
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Sofia Kamayianni
for soprano, bass, portative, hand gong, and electronics
Dedicated to Tobias Schlierf and Effie Minakoulis
- Me tropo ypeniktiko ("In an Allusive Way") (2002)
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Sofia Kamayianni
for percussion (4 players), and pre-recorded synthesizer
- Rabila Co (2001)
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Sofia Kamayianni
for percussion (4 players), and tape
- Clepsydra Mm (2009)
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Sofia Kamayianni
for flute, clarinet, percussion, and electronics
This piece has a narrative character obviously connected with time as all the stories. I cannot not specify the story that it tells as it was more or less abstract in my mind during the composition of the piece. However, the path after some time revealed itself and became clear. The live instruments are always in a dialogue with the tape. It was part of the project “3x3 Contemporary Music from Greece and the USA”.
Clepsydra is the Greek word for hourglass.
- Workshop of Dreams (2005)
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Sofia Kamayianni
for flute, clarinet, cello, piano, and percussion
Written for amateur players or players unaccustomed to contemporary music
- Inconsistency (2000)
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Sofia Kamayianni
for piano, cello, and small percussion
ca. 7'15"
- Thousand Year Dreaming (1990)
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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.
- Saouah! (1987)
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Annea Lockwood
for SATB choir (16 voices), four gongs, and boats (if possible)
The text is by the composer.
- Night and Fog (1987)
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Annea Lockwood
for baritone voice, baritone saxophone, percussion, and pre-recorded sound (stereo)
These three texts, by Osip Mandelstam, the Russian poet who died in the Gulag, and by Carolyn Forché, the contemporary American writer, span fifty-eight years and evoke the same darkness, the murderous State. The first and third songs are settings of Mandelstam’s “I was washing outside in the darkness” (1921), and the first two lines of “The Age” (1923), written in the harsh aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution and the famine which followed. Both poems have been translated by Clarence Brown and W.S.Merwin.
Forché’s “The Visitor” was written in 1979 after she lived for two years in El Salvador at a time when the military’s oppression was intense and the paramilitary death squads sent the numbers of the “disappeared” soaring. “Night and Fog” (“Nacht und Nebel”) was the Nazi euphemism for the Third Reich’s death camps. “Night and Fog” was commissioned by Thomas Buckner.
- Monkey Trips (1995)
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Annea Lockwood
for six layers; two bowed strings, two winds/brass, two percussion (include MIDI if possible), and any other instruments desired, amplification
Monkey Trips is based upon the Tibetan Buddhist metaphor of the six states/realms of being which we constantly recreate and assume to be reality, six “different kinds of projections or dream worlds” (Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche). Each realm is associated with a particular instrument and the piece moves through them successively.
The Heaven Realm (violin), realm of serenity and stasis in which the monkey dwells on her achievements, blocking out everything undesirable; the intrusion of another player draws her out of this solipsistic state and into dialogue.
The Realm of the Jealous Gods (percussion) in which fear of losing the bliss of the first state evokes a need to defend it, and a need to control and compete, but the competitive “other” is no other, it is oneself.
In the Human Realm (cello), realm of passion and intellect, the monkey becomes discriminating – exploring, comparing, reaching out to possess the pleasurable, but discovering that pleasure slips away and craving creates frustrations. However, the idea of unity emerges.
Those frustrations impel a retreat into the Animal Realm (bass clarinet), away from intensity into the habitual, rooting around in a more limited world, clinging stubbornly to the safely familiar, whether painful or comfortable.
Then a desperate feeling of starvation sets in, the Realm of the Hungry Spirits (flutes); visions of open space and of plenty turn into deprivation. A thirsting for what monkey remembers she once had becomes insatiable. Always reaching out but never realizing that in order to drink, you have to first open your throat.
The Hell Realm (percussion): a feeling of being trapped in a small space, of struggling to control this self-created imprisonment. The more she struggles, the more solid grow the walls until rage is exhausted. Then the monkey begins to let go, and suddenly sees that the walls are self-created, the realms are self-created. She breaks through into open space.
Click here to view the score. (Note: this score is for study purposes only, and is not available for purchase.)
Click here to purchase the MP3 through Lorelt Records Limited.