Program note: The inspiration for this work came to me one night while listening to the sounds of a windstorm, as the wind increased and diminished in cycles, the room was filled with the changing patterns cast by the movements of branches and leaves. Unlike many of my works that tie in more specifically to a memory, dream or emotional response to an experience, this work has a broader wash of mystery as if looking out from a perspective of a high place as shadows of time and memories travel in waves over a vast emotional landscape below. – RW
(Youtube trailer includes a very brief excerpt of the opening at 4:19)
(Available in Physical & Digital formats PRISMA Vol 4, Navona Records NV6298)
PRISMA Vol 2
Full Circle
Program note: Full Circle is a contemplation of cycles of emotion that continually emerge and recede throughout life. The music is written for a subtle interplay between the soloist and the orchestra, rather than the traditional role of the soloist being in the forefront. My intention is a shifting of perceptions in which the soloist emerges from the orchestra, in much the way that intense feelings rise from the unconscious, giving voice to emotional currents, and then recede back into the subliminal. A metaphorical image that comes to my mind is of a figure becoming discernible as it emerges from a dense mist, then recedes, blending again into the atmosphere, only to reemerge as a presence again. – RW
Recorded by the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra, Petr Vronský conductor and Petr Nouzovský cello for PARMA Recordings.
Amazon * ArkivMusic * iTunes * Apple Music * Spotify
Beneath the Tide
In Passages – violin soloist & string orchestra
Video features the PARMA recording by the Croatian Chamber Orchestra with Miran Vaupotić, Conductor, and Mojca Ramušćak, violin soloist.
Program Note: As with most of my works, the music arises from the emotional experience of life. I think of this as a reflection on the passages of emotion — that ebb and flow of the feelings that continually emerge and recede repeatedly throughout life. The music is written to balance the interplay between the soloist and the orchestra, rather than the traditional role of the soloist being in the forefront. The soloist should seem to emerge from the orchestra in much the way that intense feelings seem to surface from the unconscious, giving voice to our inner emotional currents, and then recede back into the chorus of the subliminal. – RW
Amazon * ArkivMusic * iTunes * Apple Music * Spotify
Tracing a Dream
Release 2/2016: Dream Vapors – selected works for orchestra, Navona Records, Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, Ovidiu Marinescu, Conductor
Original Release 4/2011: Light and Shadow, Navona Records, NV5847
Program note: Tracing a Dream taps into the impressionistic logic of emotions and dreams. Within this realm 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. – RW
Shredding Glass
Re-Release 2/12/2016: Dream Vapors – selected works for orchestra, Navona Records
Original Release 2008: Masterworks of the New Era, Volume 12 – ERMMedia, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Robert Ian Winstin, Conductor
Program note: 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 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. –RW
Fast Through Dark Winds
Released 2/12/2016: Dream Vapors – selected works for orchestra, Navona Records, Moravian Philharmonic, Petr Vronsky, Conductor
Program note: Inspired by the emotional intensity of a dream – careening through dense dark night fog on a bike with no brakes, no control and no visibility, accompanied by alternating interludes of fear and transcendent calm. – RW
Paradigms
Paradigms explores orchestral works that dive into the dramatic and expressive, ponder the impressionistic, and compare the peaceful with the chaotic, this album posits that music of all studies, influences, and methods of creation are pieces of a larger puzzle that shape the American contemporary soundscape.
Featured on PARADIGMS are the orchestral compositions of Allen Brings, Paula Diehl, Warren Gooch, Joseph Koykkar, Howard Quilling, and Rain Worthington, with performances by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Robert Black, conductor) and Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra (Petr Vronsky, conductor).
Includes Of Time Remembered by Rain Worthington.
Light and Shadow – Modern Orchestral Works
A collection of modern orchestral works from composers Adrienne Albert, Daniel Perttu, Rain Worthington, Rebecca Oswald, Russ Lombardi and Tadd Russo.
Includes Tracing a Dream by Rain Worthington.
Shredding Glass – single
From the title alone, one would expect Rain Worthington’s Shredding Glass, performed by the Czech Philharmonic, to be a work of brutal nature, especially when put in the context of its original inspiration: the events of 9/11. But 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 of Women in Music)
(original release: Masterworks of the New Era, Volume Twelve ERM-6827)
Yet Still Night – single
“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, August, 2003)
“Yet Still Night by Rain Worthington is a haunting symphonic composition that mesmerizes in its opening bars with glowing tonalities and deceptively simple themes. A nocturne which might be imagined in the wee hours of a sleepless night, it develops into a rich web of suspenseful moments as the string section walks the listener through a series of ever opening doors one would rather not look behind. The brass might cry out in alarm at what one might find but the pace continues nonetheless. A series of insistent chromatics propel one forward until the last door is opened and the final cry of release is heard in the brass. Alfred Hitchcock would approve.”
— Therese McNally, Writer and AGMA member
(original release: Masterworks of the New Era, Volume Eleven, ERM-6811)
