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 mezzo soprano, piano, and percussion

ca. 15'15"

"Combustion ..." is fiery with a story accompaniment. "Dream Polyps…" is gentle, spectral, and dissolves into the first Choros. This divertissement has some humorous effects between the vocalise of the singer and the antics of a slide whistle. The heightened excitement generated by the second quotation intersects the more introspective mood of the next two verses.

"Golden eyebrow auras…" is accompanied by a fragment of Bach's Easter Cantata and closes into the second Choros which is reminiscent of the opening preamble, and features a play between a strummed C major chord inside the piano and a  D major chord played on a mouth organ. The last declamatory interjection builds from a simple two-note ostinato into a majestic close.

The last two verses are closest in mood, having a quiet modal quality in the voice, accompanied by plucked strings and inside-the-piano strummed chords. Symbiosis is dedicated to Eileen Davis and Rosemary Platt.

 The performers in the recording are Eileen Davis, mezzo soprano, and Rosemary Platt, piano, and both performers also play percussion instruments.

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Ruth Lomon

for bass clarinet, harp, vibraphone/marimba, harpsichord, and piano

ca. 14'45"

Iatiku was composed in New Mexico during the summer of 1983. The word "iatiku" means "bringing to life" in the dialect of the Acoma Indians. It is also the name given to CHANGING WOMAN, the god personifying the earth and the changing seasons. Iatiku is composed for bass clarinet, marimba, vibraphone, harp, harpsichord, and piano, a blend of instruments which fascinates me. The composition opens with the indication ''Mysterious.'' The timbres produced by the unusual combination of instruments heightens the quality of mystery. You will hear the bass clarinet, harp, and vibraphone in passages of bent tones. These tones have quarter tone fluctuations which color the notes dramatically. There are "inside the piano" passages, thrumming sounds produced with a mallet on the lower strings, some banshee, eerie sounds, plucked and strummed strings which interplay with the harp. The listener may note a section called "the elements" which starts with the mounting tension of a catastrophic storm, and leads to a tightly-organized rhythmic accelerando. In the closing section of the piece there is a duet between bass clarinet and vibraphone called "rituals'' inspired by an Indian ritual dance, which has an intricate rhythmic pattern coupled with a melodic recurrence of the tritone.

Iatiku was the MMTA Commissioned work for 1983-84. (Massachusetts Music Teachers Association, affiliated with the Music Teachers National Association, Inc.) Commissioning funds were made possible in part by a grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts. (Meet the Composer Grant)

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Ruth Lomon

for clarinet/bass clarinet, cello, vibraphone/tomtoms, and piano

Weaving(s):

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. "He hath walked the whole labyrinth and mizmaze of his life." (Beza) Warp and Weft has two textures running through this 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 some songs of the

Navajo. Penelope's Web is a proverbial expression for anything which is perpetually doing and never done. While Ulysses was off fighting the wars Penelope wove her tapestry every day and undid the work every evening to keep her suitors at bay. She held off their proposals by saying that she would not make a commitment to any of them until she had finished weaving the funereal robe for Laertes, her father-in-law.

The myth gave me a frame for the changing textures of this movement, building a thick texture with the four instruments, and thinning to long solo passages with tremolo chordal treatments in the vibraphone and piano solos.

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Ruth Lomon

for piano and percussion

Imprints returns to Ms. Lomon's interest in Native American Ceremonials. As a participant in a peyote ceremony she was inspired by the vocal extemporizing of each participant, the intensity of declamation and rhythms of gourd and water drums accompanying each singer. The ceremony acted as a catalyst for the areas of feeling she wished to express. The declamatory role of the piano in "House of Storms" is an aspect of this, as are the propelling percussion rhythms. "Song to Pull Down the Clouds" opens with a prayer addressed to the thunderbird of pollen and carried into the wind-swollen sky. Ruth Lomon, composer and resident scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center, Brandeis University, has created a body of work which reflects her long-standing love of the Southwest.

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Ruth Lomon

for piano quartet

ca. 13'45"

"Wolves can move very softly. The sound they make is in the manner of Los Angelos Timidos, the shyest angels. First they fall back and shadow the creature they're curious about. Then, all of a sudden, they appear ahead of the creature peeking half-face with one golden eye from behind a tree. Abruptly the wolf turns and vanishes in a blur of white ruff and plumed tail, only to backtrack and pop up behind the stranger again. That is shadowing".

 - from "Women Who Run With Wolves", Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author

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Ruth Lomon

for soprano, mezzo soprano, tenor and baritone accompanied by oboe/english horn and piano

ca. 1 hr 00'45"

Settings of poetry written by Holocaust victims and survivors. Composed in 1996 as a Fellow of the Bunting Institute/Harvard.

Poems in French, German and English. 10 songs.

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Ruth Lomon

for cello and piano

ca. 19'00"

1. The Source.  A virtuosic movement for the cello in a spirited dialogue with the piano

2. Emergence.  The cello has a dramatic soliloquy with encouragement from the piano.

3.  Imago.  ‘Tempo di tango’ opens the 3rd movement  leading into a swift, vibrant duo that concludes with a recap of ‘tempo di tango’.

Commissioned for the Carnegie Recital Hall debut of Elizabeth Dolin.

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