Anna Rubin

for flute, cello, and percussion

Marguerite’s Dance (1981)- Infusion Ensemble, is a trio for flute, cello and percussion and written while I was in residence at the American Dance Festival with the Composers Choreographer’s Workshop at Duke University led by Earle Browne in 1981. The Ear Unit premiered the work and has performed it several times since then as well as performances at Brooklyn’s . The Barge and at California Institute of the Arts. Spiky melodies emphasizing major 7ths are passed between the instruments in a 3-part slow-fast-slow succession. I am indebted to Erike Duke Fitzgerald, Dorothy Stone and Dan Kennedy for their collaboration on this piece.

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Anna Rubin

for solo percussion and fixed media

Taming the Beast (1985) is a work for solo percussionist and fixed media. The percussionist is surrounded by a battery of metallic instruments ranging from the triangle to large gongs and tam-tams. In the course of the piece, the percussionist emerges from this ‘cage’ and ends playing the magical ‘stroke rods,’ long aluminum rods which are stroked to produce high ringing tones. The work in is in 3 large sections the first of which features Buddhist chant in the fixed media portion which has been modified and altered electronically. Metallic sounds dominate the middle section while a wide-spectrum synthesized rainbow of sound dominates the ending. The soloist has semi-improvisational sections throughout the work along with strickly somposed sections. The piece has been featured in concerts in the U.S., the Netherlands and Belgium with performers including Jim Pugliese, Jeff Kershner, Paul Koek and Max Van Der Beek.

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Anna Rubin

for soprano and percussion

ca. 15'00"

Ice Song (1993) is scored for soprano or mezzo and percussion (vibraphone and several small drums, rattles and metal instruments). I created the text after reading a haunting Inuit story describing one Inuit community’s struggle for food in the dead of winter. The song is sung as the story of one woman’s terrible dilemma as she gives birth while the hunters of the village are away trying to get food for their starving families. The vocal line is melismatic; the musical language atonal and the percussion used for timbral variety and intensification. Isabelle Ganz premiered the work at MusicAlaskaMusic Conference in Fairbanks in 1993; it was most recently performed in Germany in 2005 by contralto Wiebke Hoogklimmer.

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