Ruth Lomon: Shadowing Eileen Hutchins

• Ruth Lomon (1930- ):
• 1 Sunflower Variations 11:03
• Shadowing:
• 2 I. Canto Hondo (Deep Song) 05:42
• 3 II. Los Ángelos Tímidos (The Shyest Angels) 05:18
• 4 III. Running with the Wolves 02:45
• Esquisses:
• 5 I. Les cloches (The Bells) 04:12
• 6 II. La fête (The Holiday) 03:01
• 7 III. Mémoires de... (Memories of...) 04:06
• 5 Ceremonial Masks:
• 8 No. 1, Changing Woman 04:01
• 9 No. 2, Dancer 01:43
• 10 No. 3, Spirit 06:12
• 11 No. 4, Clown 01:36
• 12 No. 5, Talking Power 02:31
• 13 No. 1; Changing Woman 03:27
• 14 No. 2; Dancer 01:53
• 15 No. 3; Spirit 05:32
• 16 No. 4; Clown 01:40
• 17 No. 5; Talking Power 02:14
• Total Runtime 01:06:56

Info for Ruth Lomon: Shadowing

Navona Records proudly presents renowned composer Ruth Lomon’s SHADOWING, her debut album on the label. The release showcases her remarkable skill in writing for the piano, pushing the instrument’s timbre and color to its limits to create animated sound worlds such as those of the title work, Shadowing. Lomon writes of the colors in the piece: “’Shadowing’ means to have such a light touch, such a light tread, that one can move freely through the forest, observing without being observed… It is the equivalent of manifesting and then becoming like smoke, and then manifesting again…”

Lomon incorporates more radical colors—such as prepared piano—in Five Ceremonial Masks, which is inspired by masks used by the Navajo people in their Yeibichai Night Chant ceremonies. Native American imagery also appears in the second movement of Esquisses, “La Fête,” in which the rhythmic and melodic properties of the music are inspired by the Turtle Dance as seen by Lomon at New Mexico’s Taos Pueblo. The first movement of Esquisses, “Les Cloches,” incorporates overtone partials and change-ringing patterns of European flared tower bells, creating a distinctive pianistic color, culminating in the introspective, balladic “Memoires de…” to conclude the piece.

The album is completed with the recent The Sunflower Variations, a theme and 10 variations for solo piano. The colorful piece takes its theme from “The Sunflower,” a song for contralto and viola from Lomon’s earlier Five Songs after Poems by William Blake.

Ruth Lomon, composer, piano
Eileen Hutchins, piano
Katherine Winterstein, violin
Scott Woolweaver, viola
Patrick Owen, cello

Ruth Lomon
A native of Montreal, Canada, Ruth Lomon is a composer of works for orchestra, chorus, chamber music, and solo repertoire as well as multimedia works. She was had commissions from the Massachusetts Council on the Arts, the New England Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, The New Mexico Arts Division, ALEA III, Dinosaur Annex and the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston. She has had grants from the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation and the Thanks be to Grandmother Winifred Foundation, residencies at Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, where she received the Norton Foundation Award. She was a Bunting fellow in 1995-96.

The CD of Songs of Remembrance, a song cycle based on poetry of the Holocaust, was released by Composer Recordings Inc. (CRI) last April. Ruth continues her work on the oratorio, WITNESSES, which is an expansion, with added choruses and orchestration, of Songs of Remembrance, and continues her poetry search at the US Memorial Holocaust Museum, Washington D.C. with the aid of a Research Award from the Hadassah International Research Institute. Last November the Boston Secession Chorus, under the direction of Jane Ring Frank, premiered the first chorus, Wir Waisen, based on a poem of Nelly Sachs.

Ruth has had orchestral works recorded by the Warsaw National Philharmonic (Terra Incognita) and the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestras (Bassoon Concerto). Her piano work, Five Ceremonial Masks from the Yeibichi Night Chants, will be released this fall by Composers Recording Society (CRS). She is published by Arsis Press, Dorn Publications, Zimbel Press and the League-ISCM in Boston's Extraordinary Measures.

Ruth spent the last semester in Nanjing, China where she was interviewed on Educational TV (JETV) for a live audience show called Dialogue with host Chang Ming. The discussion centered around a performance of The Butterfly, one of the songs from the Holocaust song cycle.

This album contains no booklet.