Dream Vapors Suite – three movements for orchestra (collated 2018, 22:20)
I. Tracing a Dream
II. Reversing Mirrors in the Quiet
III. Of Time Remembered
Score available through Subito Music Distribution
Video features the 2022 World premiere by the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Elias Brown.
Program note: The three movements of the Dream Vapors Suite are explorations 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. With the shifting intangibility of perceptions and memories, unique juxtapositions arise, as in dreams. The “vapors” in the title refers to the residual emotions and imagery that can linger and resurface in life. – RW
Passages Through Time: The Music of Rain Worthington
In PASSAGES THROUGH TIME, composer Rain Worthington explores the mystery of instrumental music’s ability to communicate the universality of human experiences. She invites the listener into the realm of the nonverbal to reveal our primal commonality, directly touching the heart and soul with music that is delicate and subtle, yet powerful and transporting. Worthington’s music has been hailed as “a fusion of styles—ancient, medieval modality and sonorities, modernist minimalist ostinato, and classical” (IAWM Journal). Embark on a journey through the currents of Worthington’s musical streams and the emotional forces that drive her unique voice.
Track Listing
- Full Circle
Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra | Petr Vronský, conductor; Petr Nouzovský, cello - Night Stream
Antonín Hradil, violin; Jakab Látal, violin - Within Deep Currents
Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra | Stanislav Vavřínek, conductor - Balancing on the Edge of Shadows
Audrey Wright, violin; Yundu Wang, piano - Shadows of the Wind
Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra | Stanislav Vavřínek, conductor; Ivo Fišer, cello - Resolves
Carmine Miranda, cello - Dreaming through Fog
Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra | Stanislav Vavřínek, conductor - In Passages
Croatian Chamber Orchestra | Miran Vaupotić, conductor; Mojca Ramušćak, violin
View the full liner notes for the album and more at Navona Records.
Worthington places herself above all developments and draws her inspiration from the totality of music, in a fusion of styles and eras. This is the only way to create music that carries the listener as far as yearning can reach.
– Remy Franck, Pizzicato Magazine
[Rain] has the ability to state her compositional case to us directly, as it were, in absolutely concrete if mystical terms. She somehow makes clear to us how we experience the transitional, impermanent and ever shifting quality of a later modernist world.
– Grego Edwards, Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review
Balancing on the Edge of Shadows
Recorded by violinist Audrey Wright and pianist Yundu Wang.
This work for violin and piano was commissioned by Audrey Wright in early 2020, and was beautifully recorded by Audrey and Yundu for the Navona Records release of Audrey’s album THINGS IN PAIRS.
The premiere music video features the exquisite performances of Audrey and Yundu, with sound-responsive lighting created for this project by Geoff Robertson.
An “encore” release of the recording is included on my new album PASSAGES THROUGH TIME.
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Program note: The times in which I live always seep into the music, so I write from those emotions, rather than conceptually. As I began writing this piece and followed through the journey into the music, it took on a life of its own within the emotional logic of the music. It evolved to be quite beautiful, mysterious, with delicate subtlety. There is also an element of suspense, as if balancing on an edge between dark and light – aware of an ominous potential of darkness. – RW
Dreaming Through Fog
Score available through Subito Music Distribution
Premiere recording by the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra Ostrava, Conductor, Stanislav Vavřínek.
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Composed during the time of the global 2020 coronavirus pandemic as a reflection on the seeming warping of time – with a continuous undercurrent of tragedy and uncertainty, mixed with cycles of waiting and moments of hope, the world seemed to blur through a dream fog of emotional responses, creative impulses and indistinguishable days. The music exerts a subtle pull of being drawn further, as through a tunnel, while sounds of the external world filter in as delicately disjointed echoes and reverberating rhythms. – RW
Within Deep Currents
Recorded by the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra Ostrava, Conductor, Stanislav Vavřínek for PARMA Recordings.
Score purchase is available through Subito Music Distribution. Purchase original CD release.
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It’s a thrill to receive the recognition of a Global Music Silver Medal for “Within Deep Currents” in the composer/composition category.
“Within Deep Currents” conveys some of the feelings I have had during this epic time of a global pandemic – a sense of immersion within a flow of time and a feeling of being slowly pulled along by underlying currents, as dynamic forces exert their influences through an interplay of diverse energies. – RW
August 2020 Livestream Premiere: Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra, Conductor, Stanislav Vavřínek
Shadows of the Wind
Recorded by Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra | Stanislav Vavřínek, conductor; Ivo Fišer, cello.
Purchase Score through Subito Music Distribution. Purchase original CD release.
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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. It seemed to transform the room with a wash of mystery – as if from some higher perspective, with shadows of time moving in waves over a vast landscape below. – RW
Full Circle
Recorded by the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra, Petr Vronský conductor and Petr Nouzovský cello for PARMA Recordings.
Purchase Score through Subito Music Distribution. Purchase original CD release.
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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 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
Yet Still Night
Release 2/12/2016: Dream Vapors – selected works for orchestra, Navona Records, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Robert Ian Winstin, Conductor
Score available through Subito Music Distribution
(Original Release 2007: Masterworks of the New Era, Volume 11 – ERMMedia-6811 no longer available)
Program note: 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. –RW
Within a Dance
Re-Release 2/12/2016: Dream Vapors – selected works for orchestra, Navona Records, Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra, Petr Vronsky, Conductor
Original release 9/2014: Luminescence, Navona Records, NV5969
Score available through Subito Music Distribution Purchase original CD
Program note: 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. –RW
Tracing a Dream
Score purchase is available through Subito Music Distribution. Purchase original CD release.
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
