Name: A Deeper Shade Of Blue by Benton Roark in WCMA Classical Nominees
Duration: 3 min 57 s
Description: from "The Return of the Lonesome Coyote Patchwork Pulpit, and Sundry Other Tales from the Rainbow's End"

WCMA Classical Nominees

from "The Return of the Lonesome Coyote Patchwork Pulpit, and Sundry Other Tales from the Rainbow's End"

A Deeper Shade Of Blue

As performed by Dr. Marnie Giesbrecht and Joachim Segger for Arktos Recordings Limited. This audio has graciously been shared by the Arktos Recordings group for the University of Alberta's Department of Music. 

Credits: John Mahon (executive producer) and Garth Hobden (recording engineer).

Music For Organ And Piano - Meccanico Eccentrico, Quasi Una Fantasia - Howard Bashaw, composer

This mournful track features 8dio's Studio Sopranos vocal sample library, Adagio Strings and  1928 Steinway Piano.  All samples used in this track are by 8dio.

"All That We Leave Behind" from the album "Along The King's Road"

3/3/2025
Mason Symphony Orchestra
Dr. Soo Han, conductor
Center for the Arts at George Mason University

Water Sings Fire for Orchestra (2018) was commissioned by the League of American Orchestras and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra with the generous support of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Orchestral Commissions Program. Carlos Miguel Prieto conducted the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra for the premiere performances at the Orpheum Theatre in New Orleans, Louisiana in January 2019.

The piece draws inspiration from Leigh Bardugo’s short story, When Water Sang Fire – a feminist origin myth to the Hans Christian Andersen classic, The Little Mermaid – in which themes of ambition and betrayal are explored allegorically through Ulla’s transformation from obscure mermaid to tempestuous sea witch. 

With nimble precision, Ulla manipulates the mer-music’s magical properties - a show of power irresistible to an ambitious prince whose lack of natural talent drives his relentless pursuit of the throne. In the end, Ulla’s ability to transform wishes into reality rewards the treachery of the young prince, and it costs her everything. 

The loss of her voice, friend, and form illustrate the degradation of her true source of personal power. Desperate to survive, Ulla uses a magical mirror to amplify her weakened voice with the support of “all these broken, betrayed girls” reflected in the mirror. Together, they build a song of storm magic to pull apart the prince’s ill-begotten prize. 

Bardugo writes that following Ulla’s descent, she clutches her memories, and “…held each sorrow like a chafing grain of sand, and grew her grudges like pearls.” 

While this piece does not strictly adhere to the narrative arc of the story, its episodic form strings together grievances, while Ulla, who frets in the deep, waits for the “lonely, the ambitious, the clever, the frail, for all those willing to strike a bargain. She never waits long.” 

Like the story, the sparse textures of the opening moments conjure the barren lands stripped of life by Ulla’s storm, and slowly builds with the sorrow of each painful memory re-lived. The themes resonate with societal changes that challenge our nation ­– as we strive to give voice to the wronged and the disenfranchised. The work is dedicated, with hope and with gratitude, to “women who sing truth though the world rains fire upon them.” Duration ca. 12:00

— Notes by Andrea Reinkemeyer and Kate Verotsky

Andrea Reinkemeyer: Water Sings Fire for Orchestra (2018) - LIVE

This is the fourth movement of GYPSY CHRONICLES, as performed by the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra conducted by the composer in 2010. A new performance of a slightly revised version is scheduled for Feb. 27, 2016 at the Orpheum Annex Theatre, Vancouver, BC Canada.

Gypsy Chronicles 4 Retour aux sources

Hi All, I've been returning to my roots recently, writing a series of tracks that serve as the soundtrack to an imagined archetypal Role-Playing Game (RPG) for computers or consoles.  This movement of the piece broadly follows a narrative in which the player's avatar (the Hero) in the game enters a shrouded fog-where shadows take corporeal form.  After encountering the shadows and attempting to relay a message, they attack and the hero battles them to a stalemate. As they tend their wounds, a dialog between the wary hero and the misunderstood shadows ensues.

All instrumentation used in this piece was created by Orchestral Tools, one of my favourite sample library studios and publishers.  I particularly enjoyed using their solo string "First Chairs" library for the string sounds, and the brass and choir from the Metropolis Ark 1 epic orchestral library that OT released recently.

Comments and feedback are welcome :)

A Deeper Shade Of Blue

Benton Roark

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