Linda Dusman

for piano trio

ca. 8'30"

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 tothe 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 thedancing.”

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.

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.

The recording heard when viewing the score was recorded by the John Hopkins Symphony conducted by Jay Gaylin. 

Click here to view the score.

Linda Dusman

for solo violin

ca. 9'15"

When violinist Airi Yoshioka asked me to compose a new solo violin work for her, I began to study the Paganini Caprices, monumental violin works that explore many nuances of expressive possibilities on the instrument. At the same time, my heart was breaking at the news of the worldwide immigrant crisis, especially for Syrian refugees, and especially for the children. Listening to an Arabic lullaby, I discovered it used a similar mode to the 6th Paganini Caprice. Combining the two as a metaphor for peaceful and fruitful uniting of cultures became the gestalt of the work. 

As I worked to finish the piece in the spring and summer of 2018, the United States government was separating children from their families at the southern US border. I decided to fold in another lullaby, this time from the Andes. The focus of Dream Prayer Lullaby ultimately became three-fold: a dream of a peaceful integration of peoples as they are forced from one land to another, a prayer that this dream might be realized, and a lullaby to comfort the children who suffer and wait. 

I want to thank the peoples of Arabia, the Andes, and Nigeria whose lullabies are quoted in this piece, and whose music inspired my work.

Violinist Airi Yoshioka premiered this piece in 2018 in Piacenza, Italy, and a recording of her subsequent performance is available on opening the score.

Click here to view the score.

Linda Dusman 

for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, double dass, harp, percussion, and piano

ca. 9'30"

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. 

Linda Dusman

for soprano and violin

ca. 14'45"

Fifteen years ago, mixed in among mundane official forms and memos, I received in my campus mailbox Serena Hilsinger’s Triptych of Gossips. I recall that it was a “weak day of bad month,” and so this gesture of artistry was a great gift, a poem I have turned to many times since for inspiration. With the opportunity to compose a piece for the Chiu/LaBarbara Duo (who premiered the piece in 2010) I returned to it to explore its musical possibilities. After considering a number of different directions, I embarked on a path creating an homage to the 1970’s—combining the exuberance of second wave feminism with the playfulness and enthusiasm with which composers of that era explored the expressive potentials of extended techniques for instruments and voices. The piece is dedicated to Serena Hilsinger and Lois Brynes, great friends who never cease to inspire.

A recording of the 2018 performance by Duo della Luna (Susan Botti, soprano, and Airi Yoshioka, violin) is available for listening on opening the score. 

Click here to view the score.

Click here to watch the performance video (YouTube).

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. 

The recording, available upon opening the score, is performed by Trio des Alpes.

Click here to view the score.

Linda Dusman

for contralto and violin

ca. 14'45"

Fifteen years ago, mixed in among mundane official forms and memos, I received in my campus mailbox Serena Hilsinger’s Triptych of Gossips. I recall that it was a “weak day of bad month,” and so this gesture of artistry was a great gift, a poem I have turned to many times since for inspiration. With the opportunity to compose a piece for the Chiu/LaBarbara Duo (who premiered the piece in 2010) I returned to it to explore its musical possibilities. After considering a number of different directions, I embarked on a path creating an homage to the 1970’s—combining the exuberance of second wave feminism with the playfulness and enthusiasm with which composers of that era explored the expressive potentials of extended techniques for instruments and voices. The piece is dedicated to Serena Hilsinger and Lois Brynes, great friends who never cease to inspire.

Click here to view the score.

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.

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.

Click here to watch a performance (YouTube).

Sofia Kamayianni

for youth symphony orchestra

ca. 3'00"

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.

Click here to view a performance (YouTube).

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 a performance (YouTube).

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 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.

Sofia Kamayianni

for string Orchestra and children's choir

ca. 5'30"

Click here to view the score.

Back

Annea Lockwood

for six layers; 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. (Note: this score is for study purposes only, and is not available for purchase.)

Click here to purchase the MP3 through Lorelt Records Limited.

Ruth Lomon

for string quartet

ca. 18'30"

The Janus Quartet was composed during a stay at the MacDowell colony in Peterborough, N.H. I was there during the months of November and December in 1983. As I started to work on the quartet the snow began to fall -- it was a very straight snowfall -- not a trace of wind. The windows of my studio looked out on stands of firs and slender birches. The opening of this quartet tries to capture that serenity. The theme is shared between the two violins; the viola and cello are playing a D harmonic with the viola playing the note a quarter tone higher. You probably won't experience this as another tone but as a beat or pulsing of the note. This section is titled ''when the snow is falling." There follows a lively melodic and rhythmic development which closes at midpoint in the piece with a section reflecting the quarter-tone pedal point of the opening and leading into a recapitulation of what I'll call the ''snow'' theme, this time with the theme dispersed through the four instruments. This recapitulation leads into the second section of the quartet titled ''Remembrance of things passed." You may hear an echo of Schumann, a short phrase from Barber's Adagio for Strings, perhaps too short to pick it out but these echoes set the mood of this section. A quote from Beethoven's 15th quartet heightens the drama and leads into a climax coming to rest on a calm, cantabile close. The cellist closes with a theme which has been used as an accompaniement to the little fragments of Schumann and Barber. It is a quote from a setting of Blake's poem INJUNCTION which I composed in 1962.

The Angel that presided o'er my birth said

"little creature born of joy and mirth

Go love without the help of anything on earth".

Click here to view the score.

Composed for the Janus String Quartet during a residency at the MacDowell Colony. 

Ruth Lomon

for two clarinets, violin, viola,  and live electronics

ca. 12'00"

Scored for two clarinets, violin, viola, 'cello and synthesizer, The Talisman was commissioned by Boston based Dinosaur Annex in 1989 with the proviso that one component should be live electronics. The seven sounds created with computer and Opcode Librarian and played from the synthesizer have a symbiotic relationship with the live instruments. The electronic sounds I wanted to use dictated the way I wrote for the live instrument and conversely, the qualities I wanted from the instruments lead my search for a balanced electronic counterpart. The Talisman was written for my daughter who was nursing a terminally ill child. You will hear inflections of 'hush little baby...' in the rocking motion of the strings and in the viola which plays a full quote at the end of the piece.

Click here to view the score.

The performers in this recording are currently unknown. 

Ruth Lomon

for piano quartet

ca. 13'45"

"Wolves can move very softly. The sound they make is in the manner of Los Angelos Timidos, the shyest angels. First they fall back and shadow the creature they're curious about. Then, all of a sudden, they appear ahead of the creature peeking half-face with one golden eye from behind a tree. Abrupt the wolf turns and vanishes in a blur of white ruff and plumed tail, only to backtrack and pop up behind the stranger again. That is shadowing".

from "Women Who Run With Wolves", Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author

Click here to view the score.

The performers in this recording are currently unknown.

Anna Rubin

for flute, B-flat clarinet, violin, viola, cello, and piano

ca. 10'30"

Click here to view the score.

Anna Rubin

for soprano, violin, viola, violoncello, contrabass, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, and piano

Click here to view the score.