Release Date: February 12, 2016
Catalog #: NV6025
Format: Digital & Physical
21st Century
Orchestral
Orchestra

Dream Vapors

Selected Works For Orchestra

Rain Worthington composer

Czech Philharmonic Orchestra | Robert Ian Winstin conductor
Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra | Petr Vronský conductor
Russian Philharmonic Orchestra | Ovidiu Marinescu conductor

Music can possess the power to take hold of our emotions, guiding us along an imagined journey that stirs our inner being, a concurrently unique and familiar experience. New York composer Rain Worthington writes music to captivate the listener, creating textural and lyrical worlds that are inhabited by various colors and tones. On DREAM VAPORS, her full-length solo debut on Navona Records, the composer offers a selection of her orchestral works, presenting intense dreams, intangible perceptions, and musically evocative elaborations.

Worthington’s orchestral works place opposing emotional states side-by-side, juxtaposing them to form vulnerable gestures of tension and harmony. Works like Shredding Glass – described by Scott Locke in the Journal of International Alliance for Women in Music, as providing “exquisite disintegration, mere glass filaments casting light in all directions, with an undercurrent of unresolved apprehension… The texture is transparent but luminous, reminiscent perhaps of the late works of Mahler” – address the acceptance of devastating events, overcoming them with steadfast courage and transcendence. Conveying the impressionistic logic of dreams and emotions, Worthington expresses fear and sadness, conviction and love sometimes within the same piece.

Works such as Fast Through Dark Winds and Tracing a Dream emphasize how the desolate and despairing can heighten the joyous and tranquil. Yet Still Night exemplifies the composer’s use of texture, dynamics, and phrasing to convey an emotion: “Worthington has achingly difficult things to say to us, and her use of chromaticism, especially downward chromatic movement, to convey anguish, is very effective” (MusicWeb International). Worthington depicts a reality in her music that is relatable, direct, and inviting, revealing an environment in which the stuff of dreams can come alive.

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Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 Shredding Glass Rain Worthington Czech Philharmonic Orchestra | Robert Ian Winstin, conductor 10:11
02 Reversing Mirrors In The Quiet Rain Worthington Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra | Petr Vronský, conductor 6:08
03 Tracing a Dream Rain Worthington Russian Philharmonic Orchestra | Ovidiu Marinescu, conductor 8:15
04 Fast Through Dark Winds Rain Worthington Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra | Petr Vronský, conductor 6:33
05 Within a Dance Rain Worthington Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra | Petr Vronský, conductor 7:51
06 Yet Still Night Rain Worthington Czech Philharmonic Orchestra | Robert Ian Winstin, conductor 6:04
07 Of Time Remembered Rain Worthington Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra | Petr Vronský, conductor 7:56

Shredding Glass and Yet Still Night
recorded in 2006

Reversing Mirrors in the Quiet and Fast through Dark Winds
recorded June 11, 2015 at Reduta Hall, Olomouc, Czech Republic
Producer Vit Mužík
Engineer Aleš Dvořák

Tracing a Dream
Recorded March 2010 in Moscow, Russia
Producer Pavel Lavrenenkov

Within A Dance
Recorded July 2, 2013 at Reduta Hall, Olomouc, Czech Republic
Producer Vit Mužík
Engineer Zdeněk Slavotínek

Of Time Remembered
Recorded November 28, 2011 at Reduta Hall, Olomouc, Czech Republic
Producer Vit Mužík
Engineer Zdeněk Slavotínek

Photographer Mark Bowie 2015

Executive Producer Bob Lord

A&R Sam Renshaw

Audio Director Jeff LeRoy
Editing, Mixing Shaun Michaud
Mastering Shaun Michaud, Nate Hunter
Production Engineer Nate Hunter
Recording Session Manager Matt Konrad

Art & Production Director Brett Picknell
Graphic Designer Emily Roulo
Marketing Manager Ethan Fortin

Artist Information

Rain Worthington

Rain Worthington

Composer

Uniquely among classical composers Rain Worthington discovered her voice as a composer and learned her art autodidactically. She began intuitively composing works for solo piano and performing them from memory. Later she taught herself musical notation and compositional forms. Her writing has been described in the IAWM Journal as “a fusion of styles—ancient, medieval modality and sonorities, modernist minimalist ostinato, and classical approaches to basic ideas—to capture components of the human experience.”

Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra

Orchestra

The Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra is one of the foremost and oldest symphony orchestras in the Czech Republic. It is based in the historical capital of Moravia, the city of Olomouc, and has been a leader of music activities in the region for the past 70 years. Its artistic development was directly influenced by distinguished figures from the Czech and international music scene.

Petr Vronský

Conductor

After successes in several important international competitions for conductors — including the competition in Besancon France in 1971 and the Karajan Competition in Berlin in 1973 — his career began at the opera company in Pilsen. From 1974 to 1978, he was Chief of Opera of the State Theater in Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic. In 1978, he was appointed Chief Conductor of the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he held until 1991. Vronsky was later appointed Chief Conductor of the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra Ostrava in 2002.

Ovidiu Marinescu

Cellist, Composer

Ovidiu Marinescu, a native of Romania, is active as a cellist, conductor, composer, and educator. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Rachmaninov Hall, Holywell Room in Oxford, Oriental Art Center in Shanghai, and many other venues around the world. He has appeared as a soloist with the New York Chamber Symphony, the National Radio Orchestra of Romania, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Helena and Newark Symphonies, Southeastern Pennsylvania Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Philharmonic, Limeira Symphony in Brazil, Orquesta de Extremadura in Spain, and most orchestras in Romania.

Notes

This album is dedicated to my husband, Mark, who opened my heart with his invitation to dance, and has enriched my life beyond all measure. I am so thankful to be traveling on this life journey with him.

I would like to extend special thanks to Jared for his true friendship, personal generosity and belief in my music.

Thanks also to Bob Lord and the PARMA team who have always been so respectful of my work. I am very grateful.

– Rain Worthington

Shredding Glass began as an immediate cathartic response to the events and images of September 11, 2001. It was not until several years had passed that I was able to reconcile some moments of private transcendence into my recollections and thus complete the work. 

To me this piece represents the essence of an emotional remembrance of how a sense of time and timelessness unfolded while coping with the realization, heartbreak and impact of this catastrophic event. 

I believe the music is ultimately about transcendence and hope that it may touch the hearts of others who have similarly experienced the devastating consequences of politically motivated aggressions and tragedies.

– Rain Worthington

“…Worthington’s piece provides the listener instead with exquisite disintegration, mere glass filaments casting light in all directions, with an undercurrent of unresolved apprehension… The texture is transparent but luminous, reminiscent perhaps of the late works of Mahler.” 

– Scott Locke, Journal of International Alliance for Women in Music 

“This music is in a world of its own. It has an original voice and is quite specific in what it has to say….This is a very beautiful work, which weaves intricate patterns of sound in an hallucinogenic haze. It’s beautifully orchestrated, the material is well handled and it creates a dreamscape of exquisite allure. There are no heroes here, just we impotent onlookers.”

– Bob Briggs, MusicWeb-International

The intangibility of perceptions — the quiet subtle shifting of perceptions between reflection, translucence, and transparency.

– Rain Worthington

Within the impressionistic logic of emotions and dreams there is a fluidity of connections and sequences that is governed by emotional contexts, rather than rational order. Music has the capacity to heighten and distill emotions through juxtapositions that might otherwise be thought to be unlikely – comparable to dream imagery where a hallway might end in a meadow of flowers, or a darkened sky might suddenly crack like a mirror.

— Rain Worthington

Inspired by the emotional intensity of a dream — careening through dark night fog on a bike with no breaks, with no visibility, unable to see the road ahead, and having to just “go with it” — alternating interludes of fear, and transcendent calm.

— Rain Worthington

Reflecting on a first invitation to dance, and the continuation of the dance of love. … a tenderness of touch; … a lingering embrace; … dancing a circular space; … a song of two

— Rain Worthington

Recurrent punctuations of an urban soundscape reverberate in the late hours and mix with an emotional insight suffused with sadness and clarity that dreams and conflict will continue, insistent and inconsolable.

– Rain Worthington

“Yet Still Night for orchestra plays out the dichotomy of outward naiveté/underlying sophistication on a larger scale. You first think this is a lullaby, rocking back and forth between D-flat and B-flat in quarter notes that wander around the orchestra. But this is an urban lullaby, and the nocturnal world intrudes in growing chromatic lines and thickening textures.”

– Kyle Gann, Chamber Music magazine

“…Worthington has achingly difficult things to say to us, and her use of chromaticism, especially downward chromatic movement, to convey anguish, is very effective….Disquiet is obviously Worthington’s aim, and she succeeds superbly. This is a marvelous piece, with subtle orchestration and a bold wash of melody and harmony. I am excited by it, and I hope you will investigate it because, as they say, it’s well worth it.”

– Bob Briggs, MusicWeb-International

Tapping into the impressionistic logic of emotions and dreams, Of Time Remembered journeys through an interior space where logic dissolves and language gives way to subconscious rooms and pathways where memories play like shadows cast against a screen of emotion.

— Rain Worthington

Scores

Shredding Glass (perusal)

Rain Worthington

Reversing Mirrors in the Quiet (perusal)

Rain Worthington

Tracing a Dream (perusal)

Rain Worthington

Fast Through Dark Winds (perusal)

Rain Worthington

Within a Dance (perusal)

Rain Worthington

Yet Still Night (perusal)

Rain Worthington

Of Time Remembered (perusal)

Rain Worthington