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 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).

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

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 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.

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 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.

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).

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 cello and piano

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

Click here to view the score.

Sofia Kamayianni

for two cellos

This piece was performed by cellists Gita Ladd and Juan Sebastian Delgado at the Livewire Festival of Contemporary Music on 24 October 2024 at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Recording and audio engineering was done by Alan Wonneberger.

Click here to view the score.

Click here to watch a video of the performance.

Sofia Kamayianni

for actress, flute, cello, video, and tape

Click here to view the score.

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

Click here to view the score.

Sofia Kamayianni

for piano quartet (violin, viola, cello, and piano)

The piece, written in 2004, is built from three parts with bridge passages between each part in the form of solo piano sections. The mystery refers to my esoteric world at that time as well as to several abstract senses that I could not explain to myself. The ostinato of the third part is based on a Greek word meaning 'unsolved', with the mystery ending up in this way.

The linked video recording was performed by Airi Yoshioka (violin), Maria Lambros (viola), Gita Ladd (cello), and Audrey Andrist (piano).

Click here to view the score.

Click here to view the performance.

Sofia Kamayianni

for one violin, three cellos,  and two basses

In ancient times people discovered that the study of numbers and their relation between them could lead them to wisdom, to the knowledge of holy rules–the universal laws?–and to the growth of their mentality. ARITHMOSOFIA .

What are numbers for us today? An endless expression of quantity? What happened to their previous quality? It seems that we are living in a cataclysm among thousands of crazy numbers, which “allow” us to communicate. ARITHMOPLIXIA.

So, this piece had the meaning to show the huge distance between the wisdom of "number" (arithmos-sofia) in ancient times and its devolution nowadays where you use it and you hear it everywhere and all the time in a crazy, absurd way. The exaggeration of the text in the second movement shows this frenetic reality.

The piece was selected in 2004 for the annual contemporary music workshops held in the Athens Megaron concert hall and organized by the Greek Composers' Union under the direction of Theodore Antoniou. 

Click here to view the score (English).

Click here to view the score (Greek).

Sofia Kamayianni

for string quartet

ca. 4'45"

Click here to view the score and listen to a recording of the second movement.

Sofia Kamayianni

for piano, cello, and small percussion

ca. 7'15"

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

Sofia Kamayianni

for string orchestra and children's choir

ca. 5'30"

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

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Annea Lockwood

for six players; two bowed strings, two winds/brass, two percussion (include MIDI if possible), and any other instruments desired, amplification

Monkey Trips is based upon the Tibetan Buddhist metaphor of the six states/realms of being which we constantly recreate and assume to be reality, six “different kinds of projections or dream worlds” (Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche). Each realm is associated with a particular instrument and the piece moves through them successively.

The Heaven Realm (violin), realm of serenity and stasis in which the monkey dwells on her achievements, blocking out everything undesirable; the intrusion of another player draws her out of this solipsistic state and into dialogue.

The Realm of the Jealous Gods (percussion) in which fear of losing the bliss of the first state evokes a need to defend it, and a need to control and compete, but the competitive “other” is no other, it is oneself.

In the Human Realm (cello), realm of passion and intellect, the monkey becomes discriminating – exploring, comparing, reaching out to possess the pleasurable, but discovering that pleasure slips away and craving creates frustrations.  However, the idea of unity emerges.

Those frustrations impel a retreat into the Animal Realm (bass clarinet), away from intensity into the habitual, rooting around in a more limited world, clinging stubbornly to the safely familiar, whether painful or comfortable.

Then a desperate feeling of starvation sets in, the Realm of the Hungry Spirits (flutes); visions of open space and of plenty turn into deprivation.  A thirsting for what monkey remembers she once had becomes insatiable.  Always reaching out but never realizing that in order to drink, you have to first open your throat.

The Hell Realm (percussion): a feeling of being trapped in a small space, of struggling to control this self-created imprisonment.  The more she struggles, the more solid grow the walls until rage is exhausted.  Then the monkey begins to let go, and suddenly sees that the walls are self-created, the realms are self-created.  She breaks through into open space.

Click here to view the score.

Click here to purchase the CD through Presto Music.

Annea Lockwood

for baritone voice, flute, trumpet, viola, cello, piano, percussion, and speaking voice

Luminescence was commissioned by Thomas Buckner, and is based on poems from Etel Adnan's SEA, which evoke the Lebanese coast of the Mediterranean, her birthplace. The Pacific Ocean is also a strong presence in her life as in Thomas Buckner's and mine, and so the piece celebrates our three-way friendship and our shared love of that ocean, which influenced the first song: here, the phrase lengths match the timing of long Pacific waves which I recorded in New Zealand, some years ago.

Click here to view the score.

Click here to listen on Annea Lockwood's website.