Claudia Bruce’s 2026 album “I sit in my Room…”
At 80, Claudia Bruce has created her debut album “I Sit in my Room”
The LP is compiled of songs written from the years 1984 to 2024.
The album is produced by Time & Space Limited in Hudson, New York and co-produced by Kim Barke.
The music is written & performed by Claudia Bruce on piano and ukulele, while the lyrics were written by Mussmann for their theatre productions.
The “99 Song” was written by Bruce during 2011 in response to the Occupy movement at the time.
The album is recorded, mixed, and mastered by Bram Kimcheloe.
The content below explores some of the history of the productions that the songs are derived from.
(Plus a few other surprises!)
"Linda and I, of course, are theater people," Bruce says. "Linda writes the text and directs, and I perform in them, and while we're doing that text, I write tunes that go with the words."
Quote from:
Claudia singing at TSL on May 1st, 1999
Claudia Bruce Bandcamp
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Claudia Bruce Bandcamp ~
The first track on “I sit in my room…” is “All She Really Wanted to Know” from Mussmann’s original production of Avoidance & Particular, 1985
A+P toured and performed in many locations throughout 1985, including:
The Dia Foundation, The Nightwood Theatre in Toronto, The Phoenix Art Museum, and the University of Houston.
The production was re-created and performed at TSL, in Hudson in 2013.
Linda’s director notes on the song All She Really Wanted to Know
“thrills and spills”
“Some Said” is originally from the 1986 production
The piece toured for a year, first at Yale University in 1985, and again, in 1986 for the Merce Cunningham Dance Studio.
Music from the production was composed by Semih Firincioglu — a frequent collaborator of Time & Space Limited during that era.
SOME SAID
Some said that it was all in the telling of the story
that made the difference.
Some said – temperature, the reading of the barometer,
and which way the wind was blowing.
Some said that it was all in the telling of the story
that made the difference.
Some said – difference temperature, wind, barometer.
Some said – and which way the wind was blowing.
Some said the saw it.
Some were not even sure where they were on that day.
To her, none of it mattered, anyway . . . .
These little details were a series of insignificants
and not worth the telling – the retelling.
To her, meanings and explanations were for the lonely.
Was the door left open? [piano repeat]
In the process, movement was made toward the door.
Was the door left open? [piano repeat]
Movement was made toward the door.
Some said the saw it.
Some were not even sure where they were on that day.
Semih Firincioglu at the piano 1986
Three songs from the album were pulled from the 2001 production of
These include:
I Picked Up the Camera
I Sit in My Room
Riddle
Song notes for I Picked up the Camera
Notes from script for Riddle
“I like Ike.
But I am a dyke.”
An excerpt of Claudia singing and playing the violin in a 1981 Doris Chase x Linda Mussmann video piece.
The concept of the video work was created from Mussmann’s original 1979 Window production
*This song is not on the album*
WHAT IS TOMORROW —
untitled, 2024
what is tomorrow - anyhow
tomorrow is a nuisance - anyhow
we are moving - moving in the present
tomorrow is just a yesterday
waiting to be born
drill, baby, drill
thrill, baby, thrill
pass the mashed potatoes
if you will
we have things to do
places to go
so pass the mashed potatoes
and don’t be slow
rapture is delicious
to the hereafter
but who will report our journey
it’s coming fast
will it be Fox News
or maybe the BBC
TicTox or CNN / or Al Jazeera
pass the mashed potatoes,
dear Goldilocks
send me a ticket // to the moon
quick quick
before those hungry bears
come home
all the way from Moscow
LIFE IS A SLEEP -
Staff Stew, 2018
This life is a sleep and a forgetting.
This life is like a star.
This living is a thread and a weaving.
This breath is a stitch in time.
This life is the ninth of nine.
This life is a journey up the hill.
Some climb, some fall.
Some spread their wings.
Some never fly.
Some stay too long.
We are a sleep and a forgetting.
A ribbon of causes and stumbles.
An assemblage of fits and starts.
Traveling one step at a time.
Stepping stone to stone.
Some slip, some fall.
Some are caught, some are not.
Some trip on the stones.
Some throw them away.
Some leave them behing.
The journey is treacherous and thrilling.
Never to be done again.
Never to be done again.
This life is the ninth of nine.