SKU: PR.111401600

UPC: 680160003204. Text: Kenneth Rexroth. Kenneth Rexroth. Kenneth Rexroth.

Four Songs after Rexroth is a night cycle of poems and Chinese translations by Kenneth Rexroth that were chosen so that they might present a linear, nocturnal musical experience. The first song begins in the aura of twilight, before proceeding in the next two songs into a night of innermost thoughts and remembrances. In the last song, at dawn, transfiguration and transcendence is attained. The musical settings seek to evoke the beauty, mystery, anxiety, and sadness of the texts; this leads, in the third song - the emotional crux of the cycle - to the abandonment of conventional text declamation in favor of a non-verbal expression.

SKU: PR.114410840

UPC: 680160015689.

See the biography of Michael Karmon on the back cover.
WHEN THE SHEEP WON'T COME:  A SLEEPLESS NOCTURNE FOR GUITAR was composed for Joseph Hagedorn, winner of the 1990 GFA solo competition, and premiered by him in November 1999.  My original idea was to write a serene and moody nocturne in several movements.  However, as I began researching and listening to new guitar pieces, I came across Toru Takemitsu's All in Twilight, and it immediately made a profound impression.  At the time I found it beautiful, moving, and inspiring, but I also felt I didn't have anything to add to what Takemitsu already did, and that I needed to find a new concept for my piece.  So, I decided to view night as a potentially restless time, rather than a serene time, and portray states of mind one might go through during a sleepless night.  The names of the movements evoke, at least in my mind, the moods I am to depict, and the piece becomes progressively more convoluted as it goes on.  By the end, the music is a surreal and weary shadow of the opening.