'Instruments of Revelation' - chamber music by Victoria Bond out on NAXOS

Victoria Bond's passion for chamber music is evident in each of the more than 100 works she has composed for the genre. Released in April 2019, the NAXOS American Classics CD "Instruments of Revelation" includes world premiere recordings of Ms. Bond's most recent chamber works.

Drawing on Bond's chamber music of the last 15 years, "Instruments of Revelation" features performances by the Grammy award winning ensemble Chicago Pro Musica, "dynamic pianist" (NYTimes) Jenny Lin, and "dramatic tenor" (Toronto Star) Rufus Müller among others.

Lending its title to the album, Instruments of Revelation is a three movement work with each movement based on a different tarot card: "The Magician", represents ambiguity with music shifting suddenly from the mysterious and solemn to the cunning and dexterous; "The High Priestess", possesses wisdom, passion and secrets of the law, her music is calm but slowly ignites into throbbing desire; and "The Fool", considered both the holy mystic and the intoxicated lunatic, embodies music of both comedy and chaos.

Frescoes and Ash was commissioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and is based on seven images from Pompeii. Opening with a raucous band wandering the streets, dancing and playing a tarantella, the pieces continues with a mosaic of swimming fish, a mysterious fortune teller, a comedic group of actors and a bizarre skull symbolizing the Romans’ acceptance of death.

As a composer who is often inspired by literature and imagery, Leopold Bloom's Homecoming is Victoria Bond's account of one section of James Joyce's Ulysses. As Ms. Bond reflects, "I have been drawn to Ulysses ever since I was in high school. I think this is because the writing resembles the way I think - not in complete sentences, but in fleeting images and allusions, in a stream of consciousness." Rounding out the CD, Binary is a fast-paced and rhythmically complex set of variations on the number two.