About the Music:
Prelude,
“The Rivers” by Loren Rush for piano, is an evocation of the Ungaretti poem, “I fiume”.
Solombra
(SunShadow) is a seven-movement chamber work by Janis Mattox written for soprano Katia Escalera, violin, cello, and piano.
It is inspired by the life and poetry of Brazilian poet Cecilia Meireles (1901-1964), considered by many to be the greatest
woman poet in the Portuguese language. The piece is an intimate communion between the voice of the poet (soprano) with the
spirit of her beloved first husband (cello), the visionary painter Fernando Correia Dias, whose life ended in suicide.
It is a sorrow-song of grief and detachment as well as a sensual remembrance. Meireles was preoccupied with the
fleetingness of life and life’s achievements: “Vaise a vida, resta a canção . . .” (Life goes away,
but the song remains . . .)
Omaggio
a Giuseppi Ungaretti is a solo piano piece by Loren Rush based on the poem, “Veglia” (Nightwatch),
written by Giuseppe Ungaretti during his years in the trenches of World War I. This most sensuous of Ungaretti’s poetry
expresses the transcendence of beauty over brutality—the creation of beauty as a political, humanizing act. Ungaretti
was born in North Africa
and spent most of his life there until the war. He maintained his sanity in the trenches by creating the most beautiful images
he could imagine and by recreating his most sensuous memories, and by so doing he both revolutionized Italian poetry and demonstrated
that the creation of beauty is the most effective life preserver and political statement.
Mattina
(Morning) by Loren Rush for violin, cello and piano, takes its title from the Ungaretti poem. It evokes the inexpressible
beauty of a morning following a night in the trenches of WWII.
Canto
de Luna Llena was the result of a collaboration between Mattox and singer/guitarist/composer Claudia Gomez,
a native of Colombia, and is dedicated
to Luciano Gomez.
