About the Piece
Shredding Glass began as an immediate cathartic response to the events and images of September 11, 2001. It is a reverential work of compassion and spiritual healing that was composed in the shadow of 9/11. 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. [Program note by the composer]
Reviews of Shredding Glass
…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 incomprehensible expressed in sound. Powerful. – Dan Kepl, Performing Arts Review
Instrumentation:
2 flutes
2 oboes
2 clarinets
2 bassoons
2 horns
2 trombones
tuba
Percussion (2)
piano
strings
Click HERE to view a perusal score.
About the Composer
Self-taught in composition, Rain Worthington has written works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, duos, solos and miniatures. Beginning with an affinity for Stravinsky’s orchestral music and Satie’s piano pieces, mixed with the allure of Middle-Eastern modal music that led her to travels in Greece, Egypt and Turkey, Rain has always followed her own musical instincts. Her writing has been described in the IAWM Journal as “a fusion of styles—ancient, medieval sounds expressed via modality and open sonorities, modernist minimalist ostinato, and classical approaches to basic ideas—to capture components of the human experience.” She first began composing solo piano pieces, before learning music notation, and performed her works from memory in fellow artists’ lofts in Soho and at The Kitchen. With the downtown NYC club scene serving as her conservatory, Worthington led two bands and performed at CBGB’s, the Pyramid, Roulette, and PS 122. Inspired by the energy of the contemporary classical scene, she pursued her love of orchestral music and taught herself notation and orchestration. Performances of Worthington’s compositions have spanned the globe from Brazil to Iceland, Cyprus to Korea, Italy to India. Her work takes “. . . ideas of American musical style to a new place – like a walk in a familiar, yet very different park” – Chamber Music magazine. For more information and to explore other works by Rain Worthington, please click HERE. |
Performance Materials
For information regarding performance materials for Shredding Glass, please click HERE.