Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

Dumuzi, Priest and King is intended as a musical invocation to the Sumerian god Dumuzi (semitic Tammuz) while simultaneously being a symbolic expression of Tiutiunnik's vision of the god, in his role as priest, king, husband of the great Sumerian goddess Inanna (Semitic Ishtar) and the beautiful, innocently self-centered youth who dies and rises again, bringing both destruction and renewal with the turn of the seasons. He is the quickener of the child, the force that causes the sap to rise in the tree and the most ancient personification of the eternal cycle of life, death, destruction and renewal. A deity of fertility, vegetation and also of the netherworld, Dumuzi has also been called "the Shepherd" and "lord of the sheepfolds." In the Sumerian King-List Gilgamesh was descended from "Dumuzi a shepherd."

Work Details

Year: 2005

Instrumentation:  

Duration: 12 min.

Difficulty: N/A - Not for live performance

Commission note: Composed as part of the composer's residency at Charles Morrow Productions, New York City, New York, USA, June-August 2005

First performance: 22 Nov 05. Performed/exhibited every day until January 1 2006, as part of Charles Morrow’s installation at Gallerie Rachel Haferkamp, Cologne, Germany

The composer notes the following styles, genres, influences, etc associated with this work:
Near Eastern music

The composer notes:
You can listen to a binaural recording of this piece, which is published by MorrowSound, via the following link: http://morrowsound.com/soundscapes.html#dumuzi

The composer notes:
Dumuzi, Priest and King was composed at the request of Charles Morrow, while I was Resident Composer at Charles Morrow Productions, New York City. Charles Morrow Productions have included it in their catalogue of publications.