From the recording Threaded Sky
Grammy winner Augusta Read Thomas was born in New York. At age 23 she became the youngest woman recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship. Thomas has held Professorships at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and Eastman University, and was appointed Composer in Residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chair of the Board of the American Music Center, and named one of two finalists for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her composition Astral Canticle. “... All art that I cherish has an element of love and recklessness and desperation. I like music that is alive and jumps off the page and out of the instrument as if something big is at stake.”
Silent Moon was premiered in 2006 by Almita and Roland Vamos and was inspired by the Dante Gabriel Rossetti sonnet of the same name. Thomas writes: “Silent Moon is a reference to the break in the stillness of winter that is indicative of a gathering of energy. Like the silence before the storm, the Silent Moon offers an opportunity to cleanse the past so that we might better shift our attentions to future growth. This concept is often depicted through certain double-visaged gods and goddesses such as Janus, who look simultaneously backward at the past and forward to the future. A silent moon exists in the deep silence of winter earth after the solstice celebration heralding the birth of energy and the return of ever lengthening daylight. This is a time for stillness. The quality of this moons' energy is vivid."