Ramona Luengen
About the composer
Ramona Luengen was born in Vancouver, Canada, in 1960. She studied composition and piano at the University of British Columbia and received her doctorate in 1996 from the University of Toronto. She has been conductor of many renowned choirs, at the moment the Vocal Collegium Musicum Ensemble of the University of British Columbia. Her compositions are mainly in the choral genre and her Stabat Mater composition for mezzo-soprano, women’s choir and orchestra was awarded ‘Choral Event of the Year 1995’ by the Association of Canadian Choral Conductors. She works also as an instructor of 20th century music at the Simon Fraser University.
About the Stabat Mater
| Date: | 1995 |
| Performers: | Mezzo-soprano, female choir and orchestra |
| Length: | 12.13 minutes (excerpt on this CD), the complete work is over 80 minutes |
| Particulars: | As more modern composers have done, Ramona Luengen used the Stabat Mater as a framework in which other texts were inserted. On the cd The diary of Anne Frank is only presented the fifth interpolation on a text by Edith Sitwell: A Mother to her dead Child. The complete work is monumental, 80 minutes, almost the longest Stabat Mater ever. Mrs Luengen was kind enough to sent me the complete recording of the première performance in St. John’s Shaughnessy Church, Vancouver on November 17th, 1995 with Judith Forst, mezzo-soprano; Elektra Women’s Choir, CBC Vancouver Orchestra and Mario Bernardi, conductor. |
| Textual variations: | As the CD does not contain any parts of the Stabat Mater text, no comment is made. |
| Colour bar: |
As the work is incompletely recorded and does contain only one part, no colorbar is made. |
Information about the recording
| CD: | CBC Records SMCD 5191: From the Diary of Anne Frank |
| More info: | The title of this disc is a somewhat misleading. Though one of the pieces bears that title, the CD is in fact a tribute to the singer, mezzo-soprano Judith Forst, two of the pieces having been expressly composed for her. I bought this CD on the Internet, Amazon.com in 2001. |
| Orchestra: | CBC Vancouver Orchestra |
| Conductor: | Mario Bernardi |
| Soloists: | Judith Forst, mezzo-soprano |
| Other works: | Malcolm Forsyth: Sun Songs |
| Code: | 2001 LUE-01 |
