Anna Rubin

for string quartet

Flames Rising and Falling to the Sea is a one-movement work emphasizing melismatic and florid writing in a hereophonic texture. The note D perfumes the piece anchoring the atonal language of the piece.

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Anna Rubin

for flute, cello, and percussion

Marguerite’s Dance - Infusion Ensemble - was 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 The Barge in Brooklyn and at the 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 six-part women's a capella chorus

ca. 10'00"

Hildegard's Prologue was commissioned by the Urban Sky Consort, of Pittsburgh for 6-part women's a capella chorus 1998 as part of the 900th Anniversary of Hildegard’s birth. I chose the text from the writings of Hildegard von Bingen, the celebrated abbess, and visionary who composed for the nuns of her monastery as well as acting as physician and diplomat. Both English and Latin are used. Many consonant dyads and triads are used in the piece with roving tonics, creating a sense of suspended harmonic motion.

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Anna Rubin

for solo percussion and fixed media

Taming the Beast 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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The varied works of Anna have been heard throughout North America, Europe, and Asia from 1978 to the present. Beginning with acoustic composition in traditional forms – solo, chamber, and orchestral works for various ensembles - she has focused more recently on the integration of amplified instruments with live electronics as well as ‘electric stories’ – richly layered narrations embedded in digital sound. The special sounds of Baroque instruments – lute, flute, oboe, recorder, and the viola da gamba – have also inspired her to write many works. Her most recent experiments involve composing music that extends the natural and graceful movements of the virtuoso performer, ritual, and dance.

In addition to two recent awards by the Maryland State Arts Council, she has been honored multiple times by both the Ohio Arts Council and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and named a Fellow of the National Orchestral Association. The Delta Ensemble Gaudeamus Prize was granted to her work De Nacht: Lament for Malcolm X in Holland in 1984. She and co-composer Laurie Hollander were awarded a jury prize by the Aether Festival #1- International Radio Art/Radio Station KUNM, Albuquerque, NM for their piece Family Stories: Sophie, Sally.

Her work has been commissioned by several groups including: New England Foundation for the Arts, The New York State Arts Council, the Northern Ohio Youth Orchestra/ Oberlin Choristers/Ohio Ballet Theatre, Cleveland Choral Arts Society, Urban Sky Consort, WNYC-New York Public Radio, New American Radio, and the Washington International Chorus.

Soloists such as Thomas Buckner, Marlowe Fisher, F. Gerard Errante, Jeffrey Krieger, E. Michael Richards, Airi Yoshioka, Maria Loos, and Isabelle Ganz have commissioned works from her as well. Her work has been performed by such ensembles as the Da Capo Chamber Players, Los Angeles EAR Unit, the Nash Ensemble, Contemporary Music Forum, and Ruckus. Performances in recent years have occurred in Beijing, Hong Kong, Berlin, Munich, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Baltimore, Miami and on nearly a score of university campuses in the United States. Such organizations as the International Computer Music Association, the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music U.S., and the International Alliance for Women in Music have featured her compositions as well.

Her work is recorded on the Albany, Capstone, Neuma, Sony, and SEAMUS labels and she is published by Leisure Planet and AR New Music Publications. She has taught at Oberlin College, Lafayette College, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County from which she retired in 2018 . She began her graduate work with composers Mel Powell, Earle Brown, and Pauline Oliveros, and completed a doctorate in composition with Paul Lansky at Princeton University.

Her research into the work of composer Francis Dhomont has resulted in publications and conference presentations in France and the U.S.

She has had a long association with a number of contemporary music associations including the American Music Center (one-time editor), Independent Composers Association of LA (co-founder), Perspectives in New Music (editorial board), and the International Alliance for Women in Music (former president and board member).

Links

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

Homepage

http://www.annarubinmusic.com/

Articles

Women Composers and Music Technology in the United States: crossing the line Pages 78-82

Writings

Article on Female composers pages 316-317

Bibliography

B. Grigsby: “Women Composers of Electronic Music in the United States”, The Musical Woman: an International Perspective, i: 1983, ed. J.L. Zaimont and others (Westport, CT, 1984), 154-96

Hinkle-Turner: ‘Recent Electro-Acoustic Music by Women: A Survey’, ILWC Journal (1992), Oct. 8-14