- Dreaming Fire, Tasting Rain (1995-96, rev. 2024)
-
Anna Rubin
5 instrument version for flute (piccolo), clarinet in Bb (bass clarinet), violin, cello, and piano
6 instrument version for flute (piccolo), clarinet in Bb (bass clarinet), violin, cello, piano, and percussion (vibraphone)
ca. 10'30"
Dreaming Fire, tasting Rain was originally written while I was working on my Ph.D at Princeton University. The Nash Ensemble of London premiered the work at Princeton. The 6 instrument version includes percussion and is intended for performance by the Ruckus Ensemble at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. The images of fire and rain translated into a variety of musical textures – sometimes serene and sometimes jagged and thorny. In the opening, heterophonic or layered melodies surge and then subside. A middle section begins with the lonely sound of the piccolo against spiky cello pizzicati and then builds to a driving pulsed rhythm, intensified with percussion. The music then eases into a lyrical cello melody against a background of rolling piano chords and flute and violin countermelodies.
The 5 instrument version has been performed at Oberlin College Conservatory, the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and the Heidelberg College Festival of Women.
The 6 instrument version of the piece premieres in 2024 at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.
Click here to view the score and listen to a recording for 5 instruments.
Click here to view the score for 6 instruments.
Click here to download all performance materials.
- Stolen Gold (1991, rev. 2000)
-
Anna Rubin
for fixed media and Baroque oboe, modern oboe, or violin
ca. 5'30"
Stolen Gold, for amplified baroque oboe (or modern oboe or violin), live electronics, and digital audio is a one-movement piece. The digital audio portion was created in the Csound synthesis program and uses three classes of sounds – glissandi varying in character from subtle to long and sweeping, clouds of pointillistic sounds, and drones. The oboe weaves sinuous and melismatic melodies around these events as well as emulating some of the synthesized glissandi. Amplification of the live instrument allows it to blend with the digital audio. The harmonic language of the piece is freely atonal and based on a variety of invented modes. The oboe/violin and the synthesized sound alternate in prominence, continually shifting in whether one or the other is more dominant. At other times they seem to meld, only to suddenly deviate. The title has a two-fold personal meaning – at the time of first learning Csound, a complex Unix-based application, I struggled to find an expressive outlet through the rigors of its program language. Achieving compelling sounds felt like a triumph of both will and wilyness, as if I had stolen the treasure from a heartless machine.
The baroque oboe version of this piece has been recorded on Capstone Records (Debra Nagy) and the violin version has been recorded on Albany Records (Airi Yoshioka). The performer for the modern oboe version is Patricia Morehead. The piece has been performed many times including at the Ohio Composers of Electroacoustic Music Festival, Oberlin (2002), and the NYC International Fringe Festival (as music for Colette Searls’ puppet production, Basura, 2005). It has been featured at such festivals as the Festival de la Cité Lausanne, 2012, the Scotia Music Festival, Halifax, 2013, and as presented by "der/gelbe/klang" Ensemble, Munich (2024).
Click here to view the score and listen to the recording of the version for Baroque oboe.
Click here to view the score and listen to the recording of the version for modern oboe.
Click here to view the score and listen to the recording of the version for violin.
Click here to download performance materials.
- everything goes bee (2010, rev. 2018)
-
Anna Rubin
for soprano, violin, and fixed media
ca. 8'00"
This work is based on excerpts from Canadian poet Di Brandt’s poem, Interspecies Communication. The poem celebrates the life of bees with its lyrical language while pointing to the dangers pesticides pose to their survival. The musical setting of the poem emphasizes a playful and sensuous quality of the poem, both for voice and violin and the electronic evocation of swarms and honey-making.
Click here to view the score and listen to a recording.
Click here to download performance materials.
- De Nacht: Lament for Malcolm X (1983)
-
Anna Rubin
for soprano, flute, oboe, Bb clarinet, bassoon, horn in F, piano, violin, viola, violoncello, and contrabass
De Nacht was written while I was studying in Amsterdam with Ton de Leeuw in 1983. I composed it for a competion run by the Delta Ensemble and was awarded first prize. I assembled the text, which is an impressionistic collage drawn from several sources including Near Eastern mythology and Malcolm’s X’s own life. Words from several languages are used. I was very influenced by the mythological works of Joseph Campbell and his concept of the hero’s journey. The piece is in two broad sections. Melodic fragments are set against fast, pizzicato and staccato accompanimental figures in the first part. It builds to a dramatic climax and is followed by a serene closing section which is a setting of a Hawaaian creation song.
At a time when the earth was hot,
At a time when the heavens turned about,
At a time when the sun was darkened to cause the moon to shine,
The slime, the source of the earth, the source of the night, that made the night,
Intense darkness! The deep darkness, the darkness of the sun, darkness of the night, the night gives birth.
The piece premiered at The Icebreaker (Het Ijsbreker), Amsterdam, in 1983 was performed several times after by the ensemble.
- Flames Rising and Falling to the Sea (1988)
-
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.
- Vision of Blue (1999)
-
Patricia Ann Repar
for flute, oboe, B-flat clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, violoncello, ocean drum, and voice
ca. 14'00"
There is the blue we feel
in the presence of human suffering and separateness
[stylish, solo voices, self-important melodies interrupting, competing]
And there is the blue we see from above
peaceful, swirling speck of beauty on the soul of our universe
[gentle voices reminding, connecting us to life before and beyond]
There are those who carry us from the one blue to the other.
I have written this piece in honor of them–
it is time to share in and realize their Vision of Blue
- 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.
Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.
- Re-Imagining (1995)
-
Patricia Ann Repar
for flute, violin, cello, percussion, and piano
ca. 9'15"
"In the pampas, down a tree lined lane, live three people who once saw the names of loved ones and strangers burned out life, yet they keep those names alive in memory. They give the names of those who vanished to birds so that the sky above their estancia is always alive with flying names."
--Lawrence Thornton
Imagination, memory, and breathing, all tend to be illusive in our lives–that is–until a moment of crisis when they become more real than all the Wheels of Fortune spinning us round about in our oh-so-busy lives. In Imagining Argentina Lawrence Thornton describes one of those critical moments and how the power of memory, imagination, and human breath, recreated and transformed it–ultimately dismembering the military dictatorship of Argentina. The performers and myself offer this piece in honor of Thornton–in honor of those many Argentinians who adamantly and courageously refuse to forget their own dreams and desires for beauty–in honor of you, may you hear the birdsong, remember the names, and re-imagine the moments of your lives.
- Turbolenze del Blu (2014)
-
Caterina Calderoni
for violin, cello, and piano
I happen to visualize sounds as a color spread by means of broad brushstrokes over the timeline. Its shade, although apparently even, discloses ripplings, thickenings, and nuances that make it restless and sometimes violent, like the blue of deep waters or moonless nights.
- Murex (2010)
-
Caterina Calderoni
for flute, B-flat clarinet, violin, cello, and piano
ca. 8'00"
The formal structure of this work follows a spiral scheme based on a sequence of four sonic states (A: resonance – B: thickening – C: shattering – D: echo) that recurs four times, each time in a wider span of time. Moments of suspension (Tempo sospeso) frame and break in this cyclic process in order to reveal the sonic substance from which the spiral originates. Just like the shape of a shell (murex), the spiral suggests an endless process “towards infinity.”
Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.
- The Mystical Moon (2010)
-
Rahilia Hasanova
for orchestra
ca. 10'00"
- Vernee (2010)
-
Rahilia Hasanova
for chamber orchestra
ca. 15'50"
- Symphony No. 3 (1983)
-
Rahilia Hasanova
for orchestra
ca. 14'34"
Click here to listen to the recording.
- The solitary voice (1979, rev. 2008)
-
Rahilia Hasanova
for orchestra
ca. 12'00"
Everything in Life is Vibration (Albert Einstein). Everything has its own unique vibration, frequency, and sound. It means everything has a unique voice that is an expression of its vibrations and frequencies. Everything...snowflakes, crystals, flowers, take on their shapes according to their particular vibrations and responding to multiple vibrations, sounds, and voices of the universe. The universe is a choir of the myriad of voices. Each voice has to find the shape and expression to resonate with the universe. Each voice, if it is out of the connection with the choir of voices of the universe, is the solitary voice.
The Solitary Voice was premiered by the symphony orchestra of University of Maryland Baltimore County on November 22, 2015. Conductor: E.Michael Richards
Click here to listen to the recording.
- Second Symphony (1977)
-
Rahilia Hasanova
for orchestra
ca. 19'00"
- Se'maa (1994)
-
Rahilia Hasanova
for flute, oboe, clarinet in Bb, percussion, guitar, harp, piano, strings
ca. 16'20"
My composition Sema'a, for the large ensemble, is not an illustration of dancing dervishes. Sema'a is my thoughts about the mankind circling destiny, about the motivation of the nature to create, variate, and circle forms and circumstances again and again. Sema'a is my pray for humanity and my hope.
Sema'a was commissioned by the Nieuw Ensemble, the Netherlands and premiered in Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Hague in 1994. Conductor: Ed Spanjaard
Click here to listen to the recording.
- Samandary (2007)
-
Rahilia Hasanova
for flute/piccolo, strings, and piano
ca. 15'00"
- Sajda (2006)
-
Rahilia Hasanova
for chamber orchestra, soprano, and tenor
ca. 35'00"
- The Pulse (2012)
-
Rahilia Hasanova
for clarinet in Bb, violin, and piano
ca. 8'56"
Pulse represents the birth of the rhythmical patterns through variations of beats and accents. The mixture of melodic intonations, timbral colors, and gradually growing dynamical intensification creates entirely the pulse of this extraordinary composition.
Performers:
Gleb Kanasevich, clarinet
Airi Yoshioka, violin
Ina Mirtcheva, piano
Click here to listen to a recording of this piece.
- Marseaya (1993)
-
Rahilia Hasanova
for flute, oboe, clarinet in Bb, bassoon, string quartet, piano, and chorus
ca. 15'35"