Ronald Perera: Crossing the Meridian
Liner Notes   Cat. No. NWCR796     Release Date: 1998-01-01
Boston Musica Viva; Elsa Charlston, soprano; Jane Bryden, soprano; Karen Smith Emerson, soprano; John Aler, tenor; Bayla Keyes, violin; Jennifer Elowitch, violin; Daniel Stepner, violin; Aaron Picht, viola; Mary Ruth Ray, viola; Ronald Lowry, cello; Bruce Coppock, cello; James Orleans, bass; Renee Krimsier, flute; Fenwick Smith, flute; Laura Ahlbeck, oboe; Ian Greitzer, clarinet; William Wrzesien, clarinet; Richard Ranti, bassoon; Seth Orgel, horn; Richard Flanagan, percussion; Vytas Baksys, piano; Geoffrey Burleson, piano; Evelyn Zuckerman, piano; Richard Pittman, Conductor

Ronald Perera's music is filled with color and imagery. This is as true of his purely instrumental music and his many vocal settings as it is of works that add real-life sounds recorded on tape and of his synthesized electronic music. His vivid images are not designed to project some kind of pat program, but rather serve with great flexibility to underscore the emotional character of a work and of its changing emotional states, especially in settings of carefully chosen, strongly felt poetry.

Ronald Perera was born in Boston on December 25, 1941. He grew up in the Boston area, attended Harvard University, where he studied with Leon Kirchner. Later he pursued electronic music at the University of Utrecht, with Gottfried Michael Koenig. He also worked independently with Randall Thompson in choral music and with Mario Davidovsky in electronic music. Perera's extensive work in the field of electronic and computer music led to the completion of a major text with Jon Appleton, The Development and Practice of Electronic Music (1975).

Through the 1970s, he composed a great deal of electronic music, including both works for tape alone (such as Alternate Routes, 1971) and a number of compositions for tape with a singer, a chorus, an instrumentalist, or an entire chamber ensemble with vocalist (Three Poems of Gunter Grass, 1974). More recently he has concentrated on acoustic instruments and voice, with song cycles, choral works, and two operas, The Yellow Wallpaper (based on a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1989) and S. (based on the novel by John Updike, 1995). Probably his most characteristic works are those that link a series of poems on a given theme (often an anthology from various poets) set for a voice, or several voices, with a chamber ensemble. In these works—including Crossing the Meridian (1982) and Visions (1993)—he grasps the expressive As an answer to Hamilton's discontent world of each text and projects it immediately through the vividness of his musical gestures and images, while creating a music of wonderful vocality that is fully responsive to the diction of the poems.



This title, originally issued on the CRI label, is now available as a burn-on-demand CD (CD-R) or download in MP3/320, FLAC or WAV formats. CD-Rs come in a protective sleeve; no print booklet or jewel case included. Liner notes are accessible via the link above.

Boston Musica Viva

Ronald Perera: Crossing the Meridian

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CD-Rs come in a protective sleeve; no print material or jewel case included.
A *.pdf of the notes may be accessed here free of charge.
   Liner Notes



Track Listing

Crossing The Meridian: I. July 18, 1846, Crossing The Great Divide
Ronald Perera
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Crossing The Meridian: II.That Sensual Phosphorescence
Ronald Perera
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Crossing The Meridian: III. Meticulous, Past Midnight
Ronald Perera
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Crossing The Meridian: IV. Danse Russe
Ronald Perera
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Crossing The Meridian: V. Math
Ronald Perera
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Three Poems of GÌ_nter Grass: I. Gleisdreieck
Ronald Perera
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Three Poems of GÌ_nter Grass: II. KlappstÌ_hle
Ronald Perera
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Three Poems of GÌ_nter Grass: III. Schlaflos
Ronald Perera
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Visions: I. Sky Above Clouds
Ronald Perera
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Visions: II. The Writer
Ronald Perera
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Visions: III. After Brancusi
Ronald Perera
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Alternate Routes
Ronald Perera
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