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.

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

electroacoustic (2-channel and 5.1 surround available)

ca. 6'15"

magnificat 4: Ida Ida is the final work in my magnificat series, which I began in 2001 around the time of the terrorist attacks in New York City and completed on the eve of the Obama inauguration. The composition reflects back on the darkness of this period in American history amid hope for the future. I quote passages from Gertrude Stein’s novels The Making of Americans and Ida, and include quotations from my own composition An Unsubstantial Territory (Lisa Cella, alto flute, and Jane Rigler, piccolo) to evoke a dreamlike collage of emerging self-awareness. Special thanks to Wendy Salkind, Susan McCully, and Philip Maki, performers, and Alan Wonneberger, who collaborated on the surround mix and was the mastering engineer for the piece.

Click here to listen to the piece.

Linda Dusman

for violin and electronics

ca. 11'30"

My music in recent years comprises a weaving together of disparate elements. Commissioned by Airi Yoshioka as a work for violin and electronics, I began contemplating magnificat 3 during the US occupation of Iraq, and began composing it as the 17-year cicadas emerged during the spring of 2004, with final revisions in 2005. This composition is the third in a series of works that began as a reflection on the Virgin Mary’s text: “My soul doth magnify the lord,” but which were interrupted by world events beginning with September 1, 2001. I realized that “magnificat 3” was a lament late one night when I was working on the piece and my 8-year-old son woke screaming from a nightmare in which “the war in Iraq came here.” Afterward I realized how much world events had been weighing on me as well. I imagined how much worse, and more frequent, must be the nightmares of the children in Iraq, whose parents cannot shelter them from the constant violence there. magnificat 3 in the end is a lament for all children who are victims of violence. magnificat 3 was commissioned by violinist Airi Yoshioka, and recorded by her on New Albany records.

This recording of this piece is by Airi Yoshioka.

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

Linda Dusman

for B-flat clarinet and piano

ca. 8'00"

magnificat 2: still is the second in a series of reflections on the unison, in music and in life. This piece, composed for the Tanosaki-Richards Duo, establishes a continuum of relationships between the clarinet and the piano, from the most distant to the closest, as the players ultimately take over one another’s instruments. As such the piece becomes a metaphor for the long-term relationship, one in which we desire the simple perfection, the stillness, of union while struggling with the repetitions and tensions of daily life.

The piece was premiered by the Tanosaki-Richards Duo (E. Michael Richards, clarinet; Kazuko Tanosaki, piano).

Click here to view the score. 

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.

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 violin, violoncello, and piano

ca. 13'00"

Diverging Flints was inspired by an Emily Dickenson poem (from which the title is a quote), in which the poet uses the spark created by struck flint as a metaphor for human interaction. In the interactions among the trio members and in its harmonic and rhythmic development, my composition celebrates the chance meeting, and its potential power to change forever the individuals involved.

The recording of this piece is by the Damocles Trio (Adam Kent, piano; Airi Yoshioka, violin; Sibylle Johner, cello) and can be heard when viewing the score. It was recorded at the Livewire Festival in 2010.

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

Click here to watch a performance (YouTube).

Linda Dusman

for piccolo and alto flute

ca. 8'00"

An Unsubstantial Territory is dedicated to the inHale duo. Its color and texture reflect sunsets on Folly's Cove in Cape Ann, Massachusetts, and the following passage from Virginia Woolf's The Waves: "But when we sit close together, ...we melt into each other with phrases. We are edged with mist. We make an unsubstantial territory." Composed for piccolo and alto flute, it is also conceived as a tuning etude for these two very difficult-to-tune members of the flute family.

The recording of this piece is by the inHale Duo (Lisa Cella, alto flute; Jane Rigler, piccolo), and can be heard when viewing the score.

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.

Linda Dusman explores the territory between concert music and sonic art in her creative practice. She examines the natural world, current politics, and the human experience as a catalyst for constructing listening experiences that encourage a heightened awareness of the moment. Recent works include Terra Mycelia, composed for the Ruckus ensemble (to premiere in 2024) and Infinite Transformations, a bioart installation created collaboratively with Foad Hamidi, Alan Wonneberger, Lee Boot, and Ryan Zuber (premiered in 2023). Triptych of Gossips, a setting of Serena Hilsinger’s eponymous epic poem, has become a cornerstone of Duo della Luna’s repertoire, which in 2024 received the Miriam Gideon award from the International Alliance for Women in Music. Dusman’s solo CD Flashpoint was released by NEUMA Records in 2023 to critical acclaim.

Flashpoint for solo bass flute was commissioned by Lisa Cella for her Low Flutes Project and was premiered by her in 2023. Dancing Universe was commissioned by the Italian Trio des Alpes in 2019, and premiered in Genoa, Italy that year. Lake, Thunder was premiered at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC in 2015. Her work for piccolo and alto flute An Unsubstantial Territory was recorded by the inHale Duo and has received many performances throughout the United States and Europe. Piano Interiors was Dusman’s response to the 2012 Cape Ann Museum’s Soliloquy in Dogtown exhibition of works by Marsden Hartley. Her works are published by I Resound Press and Neuma Publications, and are recorded on the NEUMA, Capstone, and New Albany labels.

As a sound artist, Dusman began experimenting with spatialized texts in the 1980s with a passage from Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans. Originally designed for quadraphonic tape, Becoming Becoming Gertrude explored the rhythms of Stein’s simple language in a dynamic evolution. Becoming Becoming Gertrude 2, available on Capstone Records, presents a stereo re-mix of the piece. Subsequent works include an interactive installation inspired by environmental decline using bird distress calls (and a voice was heard in Rama), and Mixed Messages, which uses telephone answering machine messages and an antique telephone switchboard as an interactive device. Mixed Messages was premiered at the University of New Mexico Museum of Art in 2005, and locations for other installations include the Pierogi 2000 gallery in New York, the alternative alternative exhibition on Wall Street, Dartmouth College, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Magnificat 4: Ida Ida was released on the Sounding Out! DVD in 5.1 surround by Everglade Records in 2010. 

Dusman’s work has been awarded by the International Alliance for Women in Music, Meet the Composer, the Swiss Women's Music Forum, the American Composers Forum, the International Electroacoustic Music Festival of Sao Paulo, Brazil, the Ucross Foundation, and the State of Maryland in 2004, 2006, and 2011 (in both the Music: Composition and the Visual Arts: Media categories). In 2009 she was honored as a Mid- Atlantic Arts Foundation Fellow for a residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.  She was invited to serve as composer in residence at the New England Conservatory’s Summer Institute for Contemporary Piano in 2003. In the fall of 2006 Dr. Dusman was a Visiting Professor at the Conservatorio di musica “G. Nicolini” in Piacenza, Italy, and while there also lectured at the Conservatorio di musica “G. Verdi” in Milano. She recently received a Maryland Innovation Initiative grant for her development of Octava, a real-time program note system (octavaonline.com).

As a frequent contributor to the literature on contemporary music and performance, Dr. Dusman’s articles have appeared in the journals Link, Perspectives of New Music, and Interface, as well as a number of anthologies. She was a founding editor of the journal Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, and is as an associate editor for Perspectives of New Music. She is founding editor of I Resound Press, a digital archive for music by women composers (iresound.umbc.edu). Former holder of the Jeppeson Chair in Music at Clark University, the Liptiz Chairand the Bearman Family Chair in Entrepreneurship at UMBC, she is currently Professor of Music at UMBC in Baltimore.

Links

The following are links to external websites and will open in a new window:

Interview

Linda Dusman: Leading a Creative Life

Biography

University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Articles

Response to Linda Dusman in Perspectives of Music

Album review from Computer Music Journal (pdf)

“Unheard-of: Music as Performance and the Reception of the New Perspectives of New Music”

Instrumental Musician Interview

Writings

“Going to Concerts to Rejuvenate”

“Building a House vs. Painting a Landscape”

“Song of Herself”

“In Praise of the Discerning Ear”

“Do As I Say, Do As I Do (If It Helps)”

“Composer vs. Sound Artist”

“Listening for the Soul in the Machine”

“To Tell the Truth”

“Something to Talk About”

“Do You Hear What I Hear?”