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 view the score.

Click here to listen to the recording. (YouTube)

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.

A recording was made by the Hopkins Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jed Gaylin. 

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

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.

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

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 was performed by New England Conservatory Wind Ensemble, with William Drury, Director.

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

Linda Dusman 

for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, double dass, harp, percussion, and piano

ca. 11'00"

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.

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

Linda Dusman

for piano and percussion

ca. 9'00"

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.

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

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.

A recording of this piece was made by Ana Spasic, soprano, and members of the Conservatorio "G. Nicolini" chamber music program in Piacenza, Italy.

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

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.

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

Sofia Kamayianni

for Piano+ and percussion

Potawatomi, a Native American language of the Great Plains region, as described by Robert Macfarlane in his book Underland - A Deep Time Journey, includes the word ‘puhpowee’, which might be translated as ‘the force that makes mushrooms emerge from the ground overnight’. In all its technical vocabulary Western science has no such term, no words to encompass this mystery. In Potawatomi, by contrast, almost all words declare the animacy or in-animacy of that to which they refer. The language is predisposed to recognize life in otherness, and to extend the reach of that category of ‘life’ far beyond its familiar limits in Western thought. This concept fascinated and inspired me, motivating my imagination in the composition of this work. Given that the piece is greatly concerned with timbre and sound, the Piano+ system was ideally suited to take a major role in the piece, since it provides such a variety and range of new sounds from an existing instrument. This approach also continued over into the use of percussion, which was selected and designed in order to contribute to the timbral and then rhythmic world of the piece. 

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

Click here to view performance notes, which describe the Piano+ system.

Sofia Kamayianni

for youth symphony orchestra

ca. 2'50"

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 the score and listen to the recording.

Click here to view the performance.

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.

Dimitris Gkogkas, trumpet

Alex Mavropoulos, trumpet

Nikos Sarris, trumpet

Spyros Vergis, trombone

Panos Ζiavras, percussion

Click here to view the score.

Click here to listen to a recording of the piece.

Sofia Kamayianni

for soprano, bass, portative, hand gong, and electronics

Dedicated to Tobias Schlierf and Effie Minakoulis.

Performers in the recording:

Εffie Minakoulis, mezzo-soprano

Tobias Schlierf, bass and portatif

Dora Panagopoulou, hand gong

Click here to view the score.

Click here to listen to a recording.

Sofia Kamayianni

for percussion (4 players) and pre-recorded synthesizer

The piece is part of the music theatre work "Rabila Co" mixing live music with speech, poetry, electroacoustic music, physical and digital imagery, and dance. Rabila Co was performed between 4th-6th October 2003 at the Theatre Xororoes, Athens, Greece. The concept, musical composition and overall direction was undertaken by Sofia Kamayianni, with choreography by Olymbia Agalianou.

The video is of a performance by the Kroussis ensemble under the direction of Kostas Sifakis. 

Click here to view the score.

Click here to watch a video of the performance.

Sofia Kamayianni

for percussion (4 players), and tape

The piece is part of the music theatre work "Rabila Co" mixing live music with speech, poetry, electroacoustic music, physical and digital imagery, and dance. Rabila Co was performed between 4th-6th October 2003 at the Theatre Xororoes, Athens, Greece. The concept, musical composition and overall direction was undertaken by Sofia Kamayianni, with choreography by Olymbia Agalianou.

The video is of a performance by the Kroussis ensemble under the direction of Kostas Sifakis. 

Click here to view the score.

Click here to watch a video of the performance.

Sofia Kamayianni

for flute, clarinet, percussion, and electronics

ca. 11'27"

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.

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

Sofia Kamayianni

for flute, clarinet, cello, piano, and percussion

Written for amateur players, or players unaccustomed to contemporary music

Click here to view the score.

Sofia Kamayianni

for piano, cello, and small percussion

ca. 7'15"

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

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.

Click here to view the score.

Annea Lockwood

for SATB choir (16 voices), four gongs, and boats (if possible)

The text is by the composer.

Click here to view the score.

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.

Click here to view the score.

Click here to listen to some available excerpts.