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Beneath the Tide
Michael G. Cunningham composer
Rain Worthington composer
Ssu-Yu Huang composer
Bruce Reiprich composer
Beth Mehocic composer
Croatian Chamber Orchestra | Miran Vaupotić conductor
Bruno Phillip clarinet
Mojca Ramušćak violin
Pedro Ribeiro Rodrigues guitar
Goran Končar violin
Charlene Farrugia piano
PARMA Recordings, together with the esteemed Croatian Chamber Orchestra, is proud to release BENEATH THE TIDE, a reflection on human emotion and experience through a collection of five concertos. As the title suggests, BENEATH THE TIDE looks under the surface, examining underlying human realities that rise to the surface with the arrival of life’s changes.
BENEATH THE TIDE starts off with Clarinet Concertos by Michael G. Cunningham. A weighty, dissonant performance, the solo clarinet is carried by the sometimes urgent, sometimes quietly brooding harmonies of the orchestra. Clarinet Concertos is followed by Rain Worthington’s In Passages for string orchestra, where the solo violin and orchestra pass the lead voice back and forth. This action mimics the interplay between human emotion and experience, as emotions sometimes take the lead and other times fade into the background. Ssu-Yu Huang’s Guitar Concerto No. 1 (Remembrance of Hometown) is a reflection on nostalgia after moving to a foreign country. The guitar’s voice, which sings a motif inspired by a Hengchun folksong “Nostalgia,” is balanced by the accompanying orchestra, conveying the sudden outbursts of suppressed emotions that one in the midst of melancholy may experience.
These somber, reflective pieces are complemented by the final two, more lighthearted performances. Bruce Reiprich’s Lullaby, written upon the birth of a friend’s child, is a harmonically lush composition for violin solo and orchestra. Tender and sentimental, the piece reflects on the wonder of new life and the love that comes as people gather to help a child grow. BENEATH THE TIDE concludes with the triumphant Concerto for Piano and Orchestra by Beth Mehocic—triumphant not only in character, but also for the fact that the piece has finally been brought to life after its creation 40 years ago. The piece, which had been considered “too conventional” by Mehocic’s instructors, is a grand, thematic performance with bright brass, lively percussion, and swooping piano gestures, and its entry into the listening sphere is not to be missed.
BENEATH THE TIDE provides a stunning look into the minds of five composers, as well as a reflection on the human experience itself. Demonstrating the multifacetedness of the recording orchestra, and the limitlessness of the denotation “concerto,” BENEATH THE TIDE is a first-rate classical experience.
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Artist Information
Michael G. Cunningham
A great artist can manifest answers to otherwise perplexing aspects of our world through their craft and help us find understanding. Composer, author, and long-time PARMA artist Michael G. Cunningham (1937-2022) was the embodiment of this truth, a prolific artist whose timeless body of work will resonate for years to come. From symphonies and other orchestral works to piano pieces, art songs, opera, choral compositions, and works for jazz ensembles spanning 11 Navona Records releases, Cunningham showed an unwavering dedication to sharing his music with the world. Upon receiving his doctorate from Indiana University, Cunningham embarked on an artistic journey that would lead him to write over 250 musical compositions spanning multiple genres, pedagogical music books, and more.
Rain Worthington
Believing that creativity is an elemental and essential part of human nature, Rain Worthington has followed her own instinctive path. Self-taught and cross-disciplinary, her creative impulses include concert music and sculptural spaces for attentive reflection. American Record Guide notes a focus of “deep interiority” from “a composer of considerable imagination, emotional expressiveness, and poetic sensibility.”
Ssu-Yu Huang
Ssu-Yu Huang, a native of Taiwan, enjoys an active career in contemporary music. Her compositions – covering a wide range of music with bold and delicate genres – are performed by professional musicians and orchestras in Argentina, Canada, Chile, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United States, the United Kingdom, and Venezuela.
Bruce Reiprich
Bruce Reiprich's music has been described as having "unapologetic lushness" (New Music Box), "post-romantic radiance" (Danbury News-Times), and "a contemplative mood, its sedate pace subtly dilating the flow of time" (Eagle Rock Patch). It has also been characterized as "a deeply personal mediation on the poet's feelings" (San Francisco Classical Voice), "very powerful" (All Music Guide), "lovely and evocative" (Guitar Review-New York), "very impressive" (Cumhuriyet-Turkey), and "of special interest" (Guitar International-England). Praise for the Navona Records recording of his Lullaby for violin and orchestra highlights “what would make for a really gorgeous encore number” (Cinemusical), and “emotional effects so powerfully instantiated” (Textura).
Beth Mehocic
Dr. Beth Mehocic was the Composer-in-Residence, Music Director, and Full-Professor for the Dance Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and wrote over 100 works for orchestra, concert band, chamber music, dance ensembles, theater, and film. Her works have been performed throughout the United States, Japan, China, Korea, and Europe, and she had works performed in several Las Vegas Hotels including The Mirage, Caesar’s Palace, and the Las Vegas Hilton. Several of her works have been recorded for PARMA Recordings.
Croatian Chamber Orchestra
The Croatian Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1988 and has since hosted more than 600 artists and premiered nearly 100 works by Croatian and foreign composers. The orchestra has collaborated with eminent maestros such as Nikolai Alexeev, Johannes Wildner, Enrico Dindo, Berislav Klobučar, Milan Horvat, Igor Gjadrov, Gleb Nikitin, Alan Buribaev, Uroš Lajovic, Daniel Bortolosy, Michał Dworzynski, Lawrence Rene, Nicholas Milton, Tibor Boganyi, Nikša Bareza, Saša Britvić, Vjekoslav Šutej, Ivan Repušić, Guido Mancusi, Michalis Economou, and others. Chief Conductors were Kazushi Ono, Pavle Dešpalj, Dian Tchobanov, and Miran Vaupotić.
Miran Vaupotić
Acclaimed as “dynamic and knowledgeable” by the Buenos Aires Herald, Croatian conductor Miran Vaupotić has worked with eminent orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Berliner Symphoniker, the Russian National Orchestra, the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Budapest Symphony Orchestra MÁV, Orchestre de Chambre de Genève, the Cairo Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional Argentina, and others, performing in major halls around the globe such as Carnegie Hall, Wiener Musikverein, Berliner Philharmonie, Rudolfinum, Smetana Hall, Victoria Hall, Forbidden City Concert Hall, Shanghai Oriental Art Center, Dubai Opera, Tchaikovsky Hall, International House of Music, CBC Glenn Gould Studio, and more.
