Name: Limitations - Longing by Matthew Reid
Duration: 2 min 51 s
Description: A mysteriously beautiful and simple piece for a small ensemble. Expressive, mellow and meditative. Quiet bassoon and clarinet play minimalistic melodies over expressive violin and cello. Perfect as background music for documentaries about fascinating or mystical places.

Composer: Iman Habibi
Poetry: Houshang Vessal, Iman Habibi
Performed by: Simone Osborne, Andrea Grant

Commissioned in 2009 by soprano Simone Osborne for her New York debut recital with the Marilyn Horne Foundation, Silent Awakening includes four songs for soprano and piano:

1. Lily and Monarch
2. The Bloom of Youth
3. Still
4. The Awakening

This is a live recording of Lily and Monarch done by CBC Radio 2 from a performance in Ottawa, at the BC Scene Festival.

Lily and Monarch from Silent Awakening

...because one piano is not enough!  
An over~the~top tour de force of Neo~Romanticism gone wild.
amazing music animation ->  https://youtu.be/vqOizxvCMfE  see what you're hearing!


* See the Animation! *

Rhapsody for 2 Pianos - (animation link below)

An excerpt from the opening of Act II of Dylan Mattingly and Thomas Bartscherer's opera-in-progress, "Stranger Love."

Dylan Mattingly: excerpt from Stranger Love, Act II

From STRANGER LOVE. Co-created by composer Dylan Mattingly and librettist Thomas Bartscherer.

Performed by Contemporaneous at Roulette, Brooklyn, Jan. 17, 2018 on the PROTOTYPE Festival. Featuring singers Molly Netter, Jodie Landau, Jane Sheldon, Jonathan Woody, Elisa Sutherland, Kate Maroney, Charlotte Mundy, and actress Ellen McLaughlin.

Stranger Love for Website

Stranger Love, Act I, Scene 1 (excerpt)

Act I, Scene 7c — Selah

From STRANGER LOVE. Co-created by composer Dylan Mattingly and librettist Thomas Bartscherer.

Performed by Contemporaneous at Roulette, Brooklyn, Jan. 17, 2018 on the PROTOTYPE Festival. Featuring singers Molly Netter, Jodie Landau, Jane Sheldon, Jonathan Woody, Elisa Sutherland, Kate Maroney, Charlotte Mundy, and actress Ellen McLaughlin.

www.stranger.love

Stranger Love: Final Mix MP3

Stranger Love, Act I, Scene 7c (Selah)

A mysteriously beautiful and simple piece for a small ensemble. Expressive, mellow and meditative. Quiet bassoon and clarinet play minimalistic melodies over expressive violin and cello. Perfect as background music for documentaries about fascinating or mystical places.

Limitations - Longing

Music by Dylan Mattingly, words by George Mattingly. For singer, guitar, and vibraphone. Performed by The Living Earth Show and Michele Kennedy.

Dad's Birthday

Goodbye Sonnet

After taking a long break last summer and fall from composing, I started again in earnest at the end of the year.  Rather than rush a piece out, I decided to take time and really invest in a work.  This first movement of my 4th Symphony is the result - and other movements are well underway too.  I hope that the end result will be a Symphony that I can finally be proud of.  Time will tell.

During the development of this movement, I had the good fortune to receive the very generous and insightful guidance from the marvelous and rightfully accomplished composer John Hopkins @john-hopkins-941786350, particularly with regard to the movement's structure.
 
I am very thankful to John.  I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the other people that have helped me along the way.  Starting with my wonderful twin sister Catherine who showed me how to start playing the piano.  My dear and kind friend Jonathon Chappell who wrote out my first score.  The wonderful person and composer Rob Wilsmore who gave me great encouragement. Nerissa Dando, the violaist who so kindly was first to play a piece of mine.  The violinist Claire Sharpe and the composer John Webb @webb-john who played my piano and violin piece, and also especially to Claire who introduced me to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.  It was watching the CBSO and Simon Rattle's face from student seats behind the orchestra that taught me so much about symphonic music.

From more recent years I will like to thank Tom Foley who gave me my first DAW software so I could finally start writing what I could not play.  Then I would very much like to thank all the SoundCloud community for their generous support and wonderful feedback.  I would particularly like to mention the very talented composer Joseph Haspel @joseph-haspel who has so generously performed a piano work of mine and has helped clean up several piano scores.  Finally, I would like to thank the superb composer Paul Max Edlin @paulmaxedlin who has given great advice and encouragement, has so generously worked on scores of mine and was planning to have a piece of mine performed until Covid19 came along.

Given that I have never studied music, nor was ever taught to play an instrument, I greatly appreciate  everyone who has helped and encouraged me along my musical journey. Thank you.

Finally, I would like to especially thank my amazing and beautiful wife, and my lovely sons and stepsons.

Hope you enjoy the work.  And as always, thank you so much for listening.

Be well.
Christopher

Larkins | Symphony No. 4, Movement 1

Mechanical Machinations

Locked Out

Accompanied by a strange mix of relief and sadness, it is with great pleasure that I am finally letting go and releasing my fourth and final movement to my Symphony No. 4. 

It is also my pleasure to announce that Liz Dicker @Liz-Dicker is simultaneously  releasing her beautiful and moving performance of a piano piece I wrote based in part on this final movement.  If you would like to listen to it, please click on this link: https://soundcloud.com/liz-dicker/evie-by-christopher-larkins

I wish it was not the case, but as a result of COVID19, I have been able to invest more time into writing this Symphony than any prior composition. Thus, I think it is only fitting that I dedicate the whole work to the recognition of how much suffering people throughout the world has had to endure as a result of this terrible virus.  

Within the journey of this movement and the Symphony as a whole, there are numerous twists and turns, and just like life, it is far from all smooth sailing. I hope though, that you feel as I do, that there are many passages throughout the Symphony that celebrate life.  But to me, even though this last movement does lament what is lost, it is within the last few bars where the journey finally releases an unequivocal affirmation of the beauty and majesty of life.  

Whatever you glean from the work, I hope its was worth listening to.

The picture for this movement is taken from the exact same place that the picture for the 3rd movement was taken.   The 3rd movement's picture was taken shortly after my neighborhood had been ravaged by wildfire.  This picture was taken a few months later after we had rejuvenating winter rains in Southern California.  As you can see, the hillsides came rushing back to life.  Hopefully, the world will rejuvenate and recover very soon from the ravages of COVID.

As always, thank you for listening and do stay healthy.  
Christopher

Larkins | Symphony No. 4, Movement 4

Matthew Reid is a critically acclaimed, award winning composer for film, television, games and theatre. His funny songs have delighted almost a million people during his tenure as composer for Toronto’s world famous Second City comedy theatre. His comedic musical, The Second City Guide to the Symphony was has been performed by top orchestras across North America since 2014.

As a film composer, he recently won several awards as a composer collaborating with Tim Burton’s producer, Derek Frey on the multiple award-winning film, Green Lake.

Limitations - Longing

Matthew Reid

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