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

1. ‘Mizmaze’ is an intricate network of pathways enclosed by hedges or plantations.

2. ‘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.

3. ‘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.

4. ‘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 oboe, oboe d'amore, and english horn

ca. 10'45"

"The Furies" (Erinyes) was composed for Patricia Morehead in 1977. Scored for oboe, oboe d'amore and English horn, Ms. Morehead plays all three instruments "live" and on the prepared tape. "The Furies" takes full advantage of Ms. Morehead's extended woodwind techniques and they develop their own personae. The Furies, the avenging spirits of classical mythology (Mega, Tisiphone and Alecto), personified conscience. Webster's Dictionary also refers to furies as ''a state of inspired exaltation." I think that you will find Ms. Morehead's performance combines the best of both interpretations.

"The Furies" is dedicated to Ms. Morehead.

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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 bassoon and orchestra

ca.17'15"

"Throughout the work Lomon shows a deft hand at orchestration, supporting the solo bassoon with a subtly balanced ensemble that highlights individual instruments in delightful combinations. Her masterful use of color lends a kaleidoscopic landscape to the work." - Luna Pearl Woolf, IAWM Journal

The Bassoon Concerto was composed in 1978-79 during breaks from teaching composition, piano, and solfege. The 1st movement was composed in August 1978 during a residency at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, NM. The 2nd movement was completed in November at the Ossabaw Island Project, an arts colony off the coast of Savannah, Georgia. The 3rd was composed a year later while Lomon was living in Paris.

The Concerto is written in a freely atonal style that eschews strict serialism. The 1st movement is strongly influenced by a quote from Lomon's setting of 'Oh, Rose' for contralto and viola that was published 15 years earlier in her song cycle based on the poetry of William Blake. The song's opening rising motive, B-D-Bb, becomes a pivotal gesture in this movement.

The musical form of this work owes much to elements of timbre and sonority. Lomon's attention to detail is evident in the delicate and ever changing effects she achieves with this "chamber music" style of orchestration.

Two musical quotations play a role in the structure of the 2nd movement: a hymn, "Lead us heavenly Father, lead us" and the French children's song "Sur le Pont d'Avignon." Both melodies merge in the brass before disappearing from the movement.

The scherzo 3rd movement was inspired by a dance recital that Lomon attended in Paris. The dancer was encased in a sack from which he attempted to free himself. A richly patterned isorhythmic technique in the woodwinds and layering of the wind instruments functions as the sack while the bassoon line emulates the dancer trying to break free. There are also the sounds of Paris--church bells and an imitation of the Doppler effect as police cars approacah and pass by a stationary object.

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The performers in the recording are unknown.

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.

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

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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The performers in the recording are currently unknown.

Ruth Lomon

for oboe, marimba, and optional bowed chimeca. 13'00"

DESIDERATA was commissioned for the 1984 Canadian Contemporary Music Festival, a part of the Ontario bicentennial celebrations. DESIDERATA was composed for Patricia Morehead (oboe) and Beverly Johnston (marimba). The piece may be performed as a duo for oboe and marimba, or as a trio with an optional third part for bowed chime or double bass. The Canadian premiere in May, 1984 was performed as a trio with the composer playing the bowed chime.

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Ruth Lomon

for string quartet

ca. 18'30"

The Janus Quartet was composed during a stay at the MacDowell colony in Peterborough, N.H. I was there during the months of November and December in 1983. As I started to work on the quartet the snow began to fall -- it was a very straight snowfall -- not a trace of wind. The windows of my studio looked out on stands of firs and slender birches. The opening of this quartet tries to capture that serenity. The theme is shared between the two violins; the viola and cello are playing a D harmonic with the viola playing the note a quarter tone higher. You probably won't experience this as another tone but as a beat or pulsing of the note. This section is titled ''when the snow is falling." There follows a lively melodic and rhythmic development which closes at midpoint in the piece with a section reflecting the quarter-tone pedal point of the opening and leading into a recapitulation of what I'll call the ''snow'' theme, this time with the theme dispersed through the four instruments. This recapitulation leads into the second section of the quartet titled ''Remembrance of things passed." You may hear an echo of Schumann, a short phrase from Barber's Adagio for Strings, perhaps too short to pick it out but these echoes set the mood of this section. A quote from Beethoven's 15th quartet heightens the drama and leads into a climax coming to rest on a calm, cantabile close. The cellist closes with a theme which has been used as an accompaniement to the little fragments of Schumann and Barber. It is a quote from a setting of Blake's poem INJUNCTION which I composed in 1962.

The Angel that presided o'er my birth said

"little creature born of joy and mirth

Go love without the help of anything on earth".

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Composed for the Janus String Quartet during a residency at the MacDowell Colony. 

Ruth Lomon

for a capella SATB chorus

ca. 4'15"

Descriptive (narrative) poem of the aftermath of a flood.

Joyce Carol Oates, poet

Commissioned in 2007 by Secession.

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Ruth Lomon

for a cappella SATB chorus

Composed for an installation and film on homelessness.

Visual artist, Mary Oestereicher Hamill.

Text based on words of the homeless.

First performance at Sanders Theater, Harvard University, Secession chorus.

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Ruth Lomon

for flute, clarinet, oboe/english horn, bassoon, horn in F, timpani, percussion, harp, soprano, mezzo soprano, tenor, bass, baritone, violin, viola, cello, and bass

An oratorio for SATB chorus, SATB soloists, and chamber orchestra. There are 14 movements, any of which may be performed separately. The text for the oratorio is composed of poetry of victims and survivors of the Holocaust sung in six languages.

The first chorus, a Hebrew supplication from the 2nd century gives a historical perspective to the Testimony of Witnesses Oratorio. The baritone solo The Survivor tells of the guilt of the survivor. Mes Yeux describes poignantly the roundup of Jews in Paris where the poet lived. Lokomotywa is a child's poem about a wonderous train rushing through the countryside - but where is it going?

The following four sections are all poems of children who were in the Terezin concentration camp and the poems move from hope and will to live, to fear, and resignation. The first half of the oratorio concludes with the Sachs poem "We orphans, Oh world, we accuse you!"

After intermission the chorus Transport tells of forcing Jews into trains, children searching for their parents, arrival at the camp, as told in many voices. Poème Macabre describes the taunting and cruelty of a Kapo in a concentration camp. Gedale's Song speaks of hope for a new beginning in Israel 'where we shall be men among other men"

The last chorus Unite is a fragment of poem found in Terezin, a plea for a bright freedom.

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Ruth Lomon

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

Weaving(s):

MizmazeWarp and WeftNavajo: Weaving the YeiPenelope's Web"Mizmaze" is an intricate network of pathways enclosed by hedges or plantations. "Hehath walked the whole labyrinth and mizmaze of his life." (Beza)''Warp and Weft'' has two textures running through this movement to create amusical "warp and weft." The pizzicato of the 'cello throughout the movement isintertwined 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 theNavajo.''Penelope's Web'' is a proverbial expression for anything which is perpetually doingand never done. While Ulysses was off fighting the wars Penelope wove her tapestryevery day and undid the work every evening to keep her suitors at bay. She held off theirproposals by saying that she would not make a commitment to any of them until she hadfinished 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 thicktexture with the 4 instruments, and thinning to long solo passages with tremolo chordaltreatments in the vibraphone and piano solos.

Click here to view the score.

Ruth Lomon

for chamber orchestra (4 winds, 2 brass, percussion, piano, strings)

ca. 20'00"

Ruth Lomon's Spells was commissioned for the Women's Music Festival/85 by the Massachusetts Chapter of American Women Composers with a New Works Grant from the Massachusetts Council for the Arts and Humanities. The piece was written in the summer of 1985 in New Mexico, where the composer has frequently found inspiration for her music in the Navajo ceremonies and art. Lomon writes: "The piano interacts in dramatic dialogues with varying ensembles from the group, each dialogue having a unique 'spell.' The piano has the dual role of soloist and commentator, threading the seven 'spells' together."

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The performers in this recording are currently unknown.

Ruth Lomon

for soprano and alto saxophone

ca.14'30"

For soprano and alto saxophone with extended techniques. Settings of six poems drawn from the first book created by the Racter computer program. Fantasy Journey was commissioned for the University of Kansas Opus Three ‘Women in Music’ conference. Fantasy Journey was choreographed by Peggy Brightman and has also been performed as a theatre piece. The songs may be sung in any order and may be programmed individually.

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Ruth Lomon

for piano and four 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 solo organ

1. Alpha and Omega

2.Bow in the Cloud

3. When it came to pass

Commissioned in 1988 for the organ dedication of the Central United Methodist Church, Detroit, MI.

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Ruth Lomon

for two clarinets, violin, viola,  and live electronics

ca. 12'00"

Scored for two clarinets, violin, viola, 'cello and synthesizer, The Talisman was commissioned by Boston based Dinosaur Annex in 1989 with the proviso that one component should be live electronics. The seven sounds created with computer and Opcode Librarian and played from the synthesizer have a symbiotic relationship with the live instruments. The electronic sounds I wanted to use dictated the way I wrote for the live instrument and conversely, the qualities I wanted from the instruments lead my search for a balanced electronic counterpart. The Talisman was written for my daughter who was nursing a terminally ill child. You will hear inflections of 'hush little baby...' in the rocking motion of the strings and in the viola which plays a full quote at the end of the piece.

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The performers in this recording are currently unknown. 

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. Abrupt 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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The performers in this recording are currently unknown.

Ruth Lomon

for orchestra

ca. 10'30"

Terra Incognita is episodic in nature. I would liken Terra Incognita to a narrative of events which take place as we travel through an unknown land. Some of the events are somber, others are lyrical, still others are quite fierce. There is a strong element of parody throughout the piece. The vigorous rhythms and cross rhythms bring us inevitably to a grand finale which sums up the forcces presented earlier on.

In the opening preamble there is a brief violin solo which is a quote from Witold Lutoslawski with whom I studied briefly at Dartington College, England. The quote sets the mood of the parodies to follow, which are, for the most part, in the brass. The quote is intended as a small tribute to an inspired and inspiring composer.

"Engaging and thought provoking on first hearing, Terra Incognita is a work to explore and savor; second and third hearings brought me deeper into the rich vistas of this vast landscape. It is a profound and moving work, and I hope some American orchestras will turn to performing Lomon's music." "Lomon twists small strands of melody into intense melodic arcs and explores sonorous effects such as echoing a chord back and forth across a section." - Liane Curtis, IAWM Journal

Click here to view the score.

 The performers in this recording are currently unknown. 

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.

Click here to view the score.

Click here to view the recording at New World Records.