Music CDs - Gifts for CD Lovers

Naomi Stephan's hauntingly beautiful requiem for her mother is a testimony to the powerful pull of the mother - child bond. An intensely moving and thoughtful gift for both mothers and their children.

Listen To Samples

1.	Lament
2.	Mama
3.	Thank You
4.	Girl I Couldn't Be

5.	Irish Reel
6.	Second Chance
7.	Glimmering Girl
8.	Now You Go to Gentle Rest

More Information

Mater in Memoriam: For Irene (affectionately called MIMI), was written with the help of a grant from the Thanks Be to Grandmother Winifred Foundation. The grant stipulates that the project must be of benefit to women. I owe gratitude to two women in my life: my longtime friend poet Sue Carroll Moore, who encouraged me to pursue my music, and whose beautiful lyrics continue to inspire. Glimmering Girl is entirely an original of Sue's. I am grateful to my friend Mary, who gave me words of praise in darkest hours and supplied lovely graphics for future performances. And, of course, thank you to Irene for her musical inspiration.

MIMI explores my relationship to Irene. I am not aware of many requiems dedicated specifically to one's mother, nor many written for women's voices. Brahms dedicated The German Requiem to his mother, and Morton Lauridsen was dealing with his mother's death while writing Lux Eterna, but her presence seems oblique in their works.

Although not mentioned by name, Irene is my focus. I want listeners to be able to understand my relationship to, and loss of, my mother and extend it to any female in their life. My intention also is to emphasize a female-female dynamic which has historically been far less the content of literature, music or the visual arts. It was important, therefore, that I used female voices to express this most intimate of relationships, starting out as we all do, in the womb of another female. It is their female voice as they explore the various moods and emotions, which MIMI is all about.

MIMI has several unifying themes that characterized my relationship to my mother, which, like any mother-daughter relationship, had its ups and downs. I illustrated these ups and downs via songs and tunes which both I and my mother either liked or has an emotional connection to. They include:

O Sacred Head Now Wounded, a Lutheran Chorale, used often by Bach in various works and played at my Mother's memorial service in 1993; Danny Boy, which occurs in the opening Lament and figures prominently in the final two pieces; Joseph Dearest Joseph Mine, an ancient Christmas Carol; Wake Awake for Night is Flying, the Chorale in Bach's Cantata 140 which I sang under my mother's direction.

Other tunes which occur, but not so uniformly, are the themes from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro; Bizet's Carmen, and the duet "œAbends wenn ich schlafen geh" [Evenings when I go to sleep] from Humperdinck's opera Hansel and Gretel. Sung at the point when H&G are lost in the forest and 14 Angels come to their assistance and protection. It was an opera to which both my mother and I could relate. Other compositional influences include my greatest mentor, J.S. Bach, Aaron Copeland, and Robert Schumann, whose songs were the subject of my dissertation. And finally, there was the bell tower at Indiana University, whose chimes I heard daily for 19 years, and whose weekly Saturday Evening concerts influenced me more than I ever knew.