- magnificat 4: Ida Ida (2009)
-
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.
- Words Without Words (2006)
-
Sofia Kamayianni
for 2-channel tape
ca. 4'30"
The piece explores the parallel world which exists while dreaming, the hidden secrets of the subconscious. We encounter a whole scenery of voices talking in a language full of emotions, feelings, messages--messages which are not clear in the everyday language of the conscious mind but are definitely perceived through other paths. The title was inspired by a short poem of Samuel Beckett “e’coute-les”. The piece is based on vocal samples created mainly by the composer herself, using extended vocal techniques. Source material recorded from performances by the singers Tobias Schlierf and Dora Petridi.
Words without Words was selected for the EBU Ars Acustica 20th anniversary CD.
Click here to listen to the piece.
- MESA sto mesa ("INSIDE the inside") (2006)
-
Sofia Kamayianni
for actress, flute, cello, video, and tape
- Me tropo ypeniktiko ("In an Allusive Way") (2002)
-
Sofia Kamayianni
for percussion (4 players), and pre-recorded synthesizer
- Rabila Co (2001)
-
Sofia Kamayianni
for percussion (4 players), and tape
- Clepsydra Mm (2009)
-
Sofia Kamayianni
for flute, clarinet, percussion, and electronics
This piece has a narrative character obviously connected with time as all the stories. I cannot not specify the story that it tells as it was more or less abstract in my mind during the composition of the piece. However, the path after some time revealed itself and became clear. The live instruments are always in a dialogue with the tape. It was part of the project “3x3 Contemporary Music from Greece and the USA”.
Clepsydra is the Greek word for hourglass.
- Mia fora ki enan kero... (Once Upon a Time) (2006)
-
Sofia Kamayianni
for cello and tape
- HUMANUS ZPKO9/3-Phase experiment (2001)
-
Sofia Kamayianni
for recorder and tape
ca. 7'15"
A scientific experiment in a lab. Scientists have created a humanomorphus being and an animal. The being is called HUMANUSZPKO9. The experiment takes place in 3 phases and the piece refers to the procedure of these phases (observations of the scientists and reactions of the HUMANUS).
The piece is dedicated to Patrick Richmond who is performing.
- Night and Fog (1987)
-
Annea Lockwood
for baritone voice, baritone saxophone, percussion, and pre-recorded sound (stereo)
These three texts, by Osip Mandelstam, the Russian poet who died in the Gulag, and by Carolyn Forché, the contemporary American writer, span fifty-eight years and evoke the same darkness, the murderous State. The first and third songs are settings of Mandelstam’s “I was washing outside in the darkness” (1921), and the first two lines of “The Age” (1923), written in the harsh aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution and the famine which followed. Both poems have been translated by Clarence Brown and W.S.Merwin.
Forché’s “The Visitor” was written in 1979 after she lived for two years in El Salvador at a time when the military’s oppression was intense and the paramilitary death squads sent the numbers of the “disappeared” soaring. “Night and Fog” (“Nacht und Nebel”) was the Nazi euphemism for the Third Reich’s death camps. “Night and Fog” was commissioned by Thomas Buckner.
- Jitterbug (2007)
-
Annea Lockwood
for two amplified performers and six sound channels
Jitterbug, for two musicians and six channels of prerecorded sound, was commissioned by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 2006 for the dance eyeSpace. In Jitterbug, the musicians are interpreting photographs of rocks taken for this project by Gwen Deely, as graphic scores; these are intricate in their patterns and color shifts and I found them in a creek bed, up in the Montana Rockies. A pre-recorded surround-sound score draws on insect sounds: aquatic insects which I recorded in the small lakes and backwaters of the Flathead Valley, Montana; and ‘air’ insects generously made available to me by Lang Elliott, of the NatureSound Studio. A curious aspect of the underwater recordings was that these strong sound signals were being created by beetles and other microscopic insects which were always invisible to me, although the water was clear and often shallow. Deep tones from bowed gongs and a piano infiltrate this insect world, providing a strong contrast.
Gustavo Aguilar, William Winant and Joseph Kubera, with audio engineers Maggi Payne and Marilyn Ries generously recorded these sounds for the project.
Click here to listen on Annea Lockwood's website.
- searching: ten'der (2001)
-
Patricia Ann Repar
fixed media
ten’der1 n. (esp.) 1. Small ship in attendance upon a larger one to supply her with stores, guide her through shallow waters, and convey orders and directions. Strategically located within oneself yet inexplicably difficult to find.Special thanks to percussionist Courtney Lurie and songwriters Gross and Lawrence for their tune Tenderly (1955).
- The Unseen Gumboot (1998)
-
Patricia Ann Repar
for five performers, body percussion, junk metal, tape
Darkness--thin air--tight spaces--twelve-hour shifts--Day in day out.
Working in the gold mines of South Africa black labourers developed a body percussion sequence, the Gumboot, as a way of surviving the intense physical and emotional stresses imposed upon them. Musically demanding and highly entertaing this piece is now internationally known and appreciated.
The Unseen Gumboot, however, reminds us of that which we would probably rather not remember--the context in which the piece was born--the harsh realities of Apartheid and our own potential (yours and mine) for creating horrific moments in human history.
- Alex (2014)
-
Patricia Ann Repar
for oboe, viola, and tape
ca. 9'45"
it's endless weeping
one slowly descending tear at a time
with a hint of tenderness
hovering in the sweet echoes of lullaby
but mostly it's thunder and rigor and passionate commitment
for nothing more than a
single moment of connection
and an unremarkable knowing
that somewhere the weeping has stopped
Special thanks to the artists and producers of the CD The Thula Project: An Album of South African Lullabies. The digital accompaniment for Alex includes short excerpts from 3 of the cuts on the CD- Homolela Ngwanaka, Umlolozelo and Rhaliwent.
- Red Mountain Note (2004)
-
Patricia Ann Repar
flute/piccolo, B-flat clarinet, voice, violin, violoncello, contrabass, and tape
ca. 11'00"
Note to performers and listeners: written in celebration of my cousin Jerry Leon who made the last of his many adventures on earth while skiing in February of 2004.
Note to self: Find the Hawaiian chant secretly embedded on the ‘Ulalena’ CD; And on ‘The Master Chanters of Hawaii’ use “e ulu, e ulu, kini o ke akua” (Inspire us, inspire us, O gods).
Note to Jerry: whispers of other times and places
both mythic and real
souls and gypsies
long passed and yet to come
but I see you
bright, strong, and clear
like water
atop, within, above, and beyond
Red Mountain.