Ruth Lomon

for flute, TAB flute, B-flat clarinet, piano, violoncello, and vibraphone

1. Mizmaze

2. Warp and Weft

3. Navajo: Weaving the Yei

4. Penelope’s Web

Mizmaze is an intricate network of pathways enclosed by hedges or plantations. Warp and Weft has two textures running through the movement to create a musical ‘warp and weft’. The pizzicato of the cello throughout the movement is intertwined with the melodic lines of the other instruments. Navajo: Weaving the Yei refers to the Navajo rugs that have the figures of the Yei, Navajo deities, woven into the rugs. You will hear references to songs of the Navajo and some chants. Penelope’s Web is a proverbial expression for work which is ongoing but never completed. The myth gave me a frame for the changing textures of this movement, building a thick texture with all the instruments and thinning to long solo flute passages accompanied by vibraphone tremolo chords.

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Ruth Lomon

for flute, B-flat clarinet/bass clarinet, bassoon, trumpets in C, trombone/bass trombone, solo soprano, and SATB chorus

Songs from a Requiem are inserts in the setting of a Requiem Mass which Ruth Lomon composed in 1977 and dedicated to the memory of her sister. The Mass proper is set for chorus (SATB) accompanied by trumpets and trombones. The songs, settings of poems she wrote between 1970 and 1972, are orchestrated for soprano, flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, and bassoon. The version for soprano with piano accompaniment was written in 1982.

The premiere of the entire Requiem took place in Boston, February 22, 1997, performed by Choro Allegro under the direction of David Hodgkins.

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Ruth Lomon

for three flutes

ca. 10'45"

A sunny, pastoral work composed in 2000. It was originally written to accompany the installation of a sound sculpture of three buoys constructed of phragmite grasses. It works well in concert halls as a flute trio and also as a spatial piece.

Tributary may be accompanied by a video film ‘What Water Tells Me’ created by installation artist, Mary Oestereicher Hamill.

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Ruth Lomon

for solo flute

Sweet Sixteen was composed for flutist Nina Assimakopulos’ project ‘Contemporary Works for Solo Flute by American Women Composers’ in 2003. The Music for this project is literature-based; musical sounds and ideas expressed through a solo instrument. Sweet Sixteen is based on a poem by Vera Weislitzova, a poem about her 16th birthday in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

The work is in two brief movements:

1. Behind the Wall

2. The Ball

The linked video recording was performed by Emily Hinz.

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Click here to view the performance.

Ruth Lomon

for woodwind quintet (flute, oboe, B-flat clarinet, horn in F, bassoon)

ca. 12'45"

Diptych was composed in 1983 while Ruth Lomon was a fellow at the MacDowell Art Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. It is a work for woodwind quintet in two distinctive movements which also share common structural elements. The first section is dominated by a melodic line which threads through the instruments. In both halves of the Diptych there are episodes composed of trios for flute, oboe and clarinet. In the first trio the clarinet melody develops over a motoric rhythmic element, whereas the trio of the second part closes the movement with a haunting and improvisatory ending. Diptych was composed for the Lyricum Ensemble (Massachusetts), and has been performed by numerous woodwind quintets including the Ars Nova (New York), Venti Da Camera (Bowling Green University OH), The Ariel Quintet (Boston MA), The Theophilus Quintet and New Mexico Woodwind Quintet (both of Albuquerque NM). In 1993 Diptych was a finalist for Symposium VII for New Woodwind Quintet Music at The University of Georgia and was performed by The Metro Wind Quintet of St. Louis, MO.

Click here to view the score and listen to a recording.