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Becoming Becoming Gertrude (2000)
Linda Dusman:
"Becoming Becoming Gertrude (2000) was inspired by the timbral richness of the spoken word, the beauty of the language of Gertrude Stein's writings, and the natural acoustic resonances found in the source recordings for the piece, two of the original tracks from my quadraphonic tape piece Becoming Becoming Gertrude (version 1: 1988). The rough-hewn quality of these original analogue recordings coupled with the rhythms of Stein's primarily monosyllabic and repetitive language constitute the starting point for the various transformations of the source text, a paragraph from Stein's monumental novel The Making of Americans (1906-1908) ... Compositional gestures also guide the development of spatial elements of the piece, all of which are extensions of the room resonances found in the initial recording sessions of the 1988 version. While the resonances expand and contract, the voices of performers Susan McCully and Philip Maki remain unaltered as they embark on a series of repetitive and asymmetric undulations, cresting ultimately in the whispered original text. [...]"
Texts for Becoming Becoming Gertrude:
From The Making of Americans (1906-1908) by Gertrude Stein (1874-1946)
There are many that I know and they know it. They are all of them repeating and I hear it. I love it and I tell it. I love it and now I will write it. This is now a history of my love of it. I hear it and I love it and I write it. They repeat it. They live it and I see it and I hear it. They live it and I hear it and I see it and I love it and now and always I will write it. There are many kinds of men and women and I know it. They repeat it and I hear it and I love it. This is now a history of the way they do it. This is now a history of the way I love it.
Linda Dusman (b. 1956) is a composer and sound artist influenced by the music of Ruth Crawford Seeger and John Cage as well as poetry, politics, mathematics, the natural world, and more recently, her experiences as a woman. Dusman:
"My music begins as a non-utopian response to seeking beauty in the world around me, especially with regard to 'ugliness,' as a kind of discipline for looking beyond the surface of things, experiences, and people ... I consciously shape my materials as a strict formalist while maintaining an ear for the whimsical, enjoying my compositional 'mistakes' and then developing them."
Born in Hanover, Pennsylvania, Dusman studied composition at the University of Pittsburgh, American University in Washington, DC, and University of Maryland, College Park. Her principal teachers were Thomas DeLio, Evelyn Hayes, and Haig Mardirosian. Dusman's music and sound pieces have been performed and installed across the United States, and in Europe, Asia, and South America. She has received grants and awards from the American Composers Forum, International Electroacoustic Music Festival of São Paulo, Swiss Women's Music Forum, and Ucross Foundation, among others. Her works are recorded on the Albany, Capstone, and Neuma labels.
Dusman is currently chair of the music department at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), and previously held the Jeppson Chair in Music at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. She is a founding editor of the journal Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, and serves as an associate editor for Perspectives of New Music. In 2003 Dusman was composer-in-residence at the New England Conservatory's Summer Institute for Contemporary Piano Performance; the following year she exhibited her sound installation Mixed Messages (2004) at the University of New Mexico Art Museum, for which she received an Individual Artist Award from the State of Maryland. Recent projects include O Star Spangled Stripes I (2005) for the Hoffmann/Goldstein Duo, and magnificat 3: lament (2005) for solo violin, electronics, and interactive animation, the third in a series of compositions entitled magnificat written for members of the contemporary ensemble RUCKUS at UMBC.
related websites
http://www.umbc.edu/music/site/faculty/dusman.html
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