Linda Dusman

for C flute, A clarinet, violin, cello, piano, large tam-tam, medium triangle (very resonant), crotales, Almglocken (B5 only), and 5-octave marimba

ca. 11'00"

This piece is dedicated to the Ruckus Ensemble and to Rahilia Hasanova, an extraordinary composer and friend. The recording heard when viewing the score was from an October 2024 LiveWire Festival performance by the Ruckus Ensemble at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. The performers were Lisa Cella (flute), Natalie Groom (clarinet), Airi Yoshioka (violin), Gita Ladd (cello), Teodora Adzharova (piano), and Dustin Donahue (percussion).

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

Linda Dusman

for Bb clarinet and piano

ca. 7'00"

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

Linda Dusman

for piano trio

ca. 10'00"

Dancing Universe, composed in honor of my parents who both passed away in 2015, quotes fragments of their favorite hymns in memoria. While composing, I was also reflecting on T.S. Eliot’s monumental poem Four Quartets, especially these passages:

“And the bird called in response to the unheard music hidden in the shrubbery…I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope…But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting…So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”

The recording heard when viewing the score was performed by the Trio des Alpes (Hana Kotková, violin, Claude Hauri, cello, and Corrado Greco, piano).

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Linda Dusman

for cello and piano

ca. 12'00"

Corona Bagatelles comprises a musical cryptogram of 1273 amino acids, which chained together create the spike protein of the COVID-19 virus. This protein enables the virus to bind to human cells and replicate itself, creating havoc in the human body. During the dark days of 2020, I took solace in contemplating the abstraction of this single cell, exerting a measure of control unavailable by any other means by “composing” it, imposing rhythms, melody, timbre, and form onto it. Each of the 5 movements is based on a subset of the entire amino acid chain, and its sounding motives suggested various characters or moments in my experience of the COVID quarantine (including an odd sequence where it quoted the opening notes of the Dies Irae, the mass for the dead), an experience all humanity now shares.

The final movement "Binding" celebrates the life of composer Wesley Fuller, who passed away as I was composing it. I had in mind one of my favorite compositions of his, Time into Pieces, and his joy in living expressed in his music, his poetry, and his love of family and friends. The final act of the coronavirus is to bind to our cells before it replicates itself. Binding to one another in shared purpose is perhaps our only way to survive. I also wanted to express this contradiction to close the set of bagatelles.

I offer my appreciation and thanks to the Duo des Alpes, Corrado Greco and Claude Hauri, for commissioning this piece; to Dr. Phyllis Robinson, who tutored me in biology while I composed it; and to our student Peter Bailer who as a biochemist and composer assisted with the translation into music.

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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.

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Linda Dusman

for violin, cello, and piano

ca. 11'45"

This piece is dedicated to Trio des Alpes.

Thundersnow explores the concept of transformation and the union of opposites. Coarse, rock-like fragments twist in counterpoint, melting into metallic surfaces that eventually take flight. 

A recording of this piece was made by Trio des Alpes.

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Linda Dusman

for solo piano

ca. 8'00"

I composed the movements of Piano Interiors as meditations on natural phenomena that I correlate to inner psychological states. “Isostasy,” a state of geological equilibrium, arises from equal pressure above and below. The large boulders left behind after glacial movements constitute “glacial till.” “Susurrus,” the English word for the sound of rustling leaves, comes from the Latin verb “to whisper.” “Intrusive dikes” are discordant geological features, which form as a result of magma being injected into rock fissures. Massive flocks of starlings create “murmurations” when they twist and turn in flight, in unison, creating a visual mathematical phase transition.

A recording of this piece was made by Dr. Audrey Andrist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in November of 2015. 

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Linda Dusman

for solo piano

ca. 4'00"

Three short pieces for the intermediate pianist.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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, 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.

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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).

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. 

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

Sofia Kamayianni

for piano and CD

The "dreamy textured" tape (electronic process by the composer) builds on improvisations by the great soloist Manos Avarakis, playing harmonicas, recorders, and the exotic kalimba, all recorded over a period of time especially to be used in creating this piece.

Sofia Kamayianni, piano

Tim Ward - sound engineering, video production

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Click here to listen to the recording.

Sofia Kamayianni

for cello and piano

In limbo: a state of uncertainty or unresolved status, in between a sense of fleeting moments.

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Sofia Kamayianni

for solo piano

This piece was commissioned by the “Living Composers Project” (London, 2007) for a concert where all the pieces had the same commitment, 5 short miniatures for solo piano. “The Mirror” was inspired by a poem with the title “It is me” written by a Greek poet-psychologist, Eirini Protopapadaki. Vagueness, detection, conflicts, shadows, contradictions, senses: each miniature follows a path related to these terms.

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Sofia Kamayianni

for soprano, saxophone, tuba, cello, piano, and actress

ca. 10'30"

This piece is actually a cooking recipe, but one whose instructions are fantastical rather than realistic. It aims to trigger the listener’s imagination and alternative outlook through humor. The score is a graphic one with many ‘open’ elements that invite experiment and interpretation. This score was studied and realized cooperatively by the composer and the specific ensemble involved. The Storytelling Project was an eclectic mixture of contemporary music and narration – a musical performance featuring elements of theatre mixed with instruments, vocals, electronics, improvisation, original texts and movement.

Storytelling Project, Spiza Patras, European Capital of Culture, 9 Μay 2006

Sofia Kamayianni: composition, piano, percussion

Rania Kelaiditi: actress

Dina Mantzari: soprano

Irina Dimaki: violoncello

Dora Panagopoulou: composition, piano, percussion,

Joe Tornabene: composition, saxophone, actor

Tim Ward: composition, tuba, live electronics.

Click here to view the score.

Click here to watch a video of the performance.

Sofia Kamayianni

for flute, clarinet, cello, piano, and percussion

Written for amateur players, or players unaccustomed to contemporary music

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