Diaphanous Grace (2020)
from the composer
Botticelli’s and von Heyl’s Primavera paintings seem to have infinite layers to reveal; each look pulls me deeper, probing for the secret of each detail and gesture. Amid stark contrasts of light, dark and color, a quixotic sense of space and depth, my focus is stretched wide across the foreground. Each iconic figure is shrouded in symbolism, yet their interaction in the scene is enigmatic. Chloris, in mid-abduction, and the three dancing Graces are all draped in translucent folds of gossamer fabric, its motion drawing our gaze into the beauty and vulnerability of their bodies. Chloris will become the spring goddess, Flora, strewing roses, and the Graces’ artless dance is unconcerned with the other figures’ pathos. Together these women, swathed in Diaphanous Grace, are the promise of transformation and new creation. Through the flowing aura of their garments we sense the delicate buds of the unknown, the possibility of an awakening that remains just out of reach. In writing this, my fifth work for unaccompanied cello for Matt Haimovitz, I wanted to begin in that place of suspended, ever-changing transparency – however that may translate into sound – and never let it fall to earth.
Diaphanous Grace was written in fall 2020, and is dedicated to the memory of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
bio
Award-winning composer Luna Pearl Woolf has long used her evocative voice to advocate for social and political change. Her work has been praised as “brilliant … profoundly moving” (Opera Going Toronto) for its “psychological nuances and emotional depth” (NY Times). Her dramatic works are championed by major opera houses and international performing artists.
Woolf’s oratorio Number Our Days, with concept and libretto by David Van Taylor, was commissioned and premiered by PAC NYC in its inaugural 2023-2024 season, receiving a thunderous response: “extraordinary, completely original…new and electrifying,” “death-affirming, life-inciting,” “elegiac, funny, haunting…poetic, and
utterly unique.”
Canada’s CBC Music named the JUNO award-nominated recording Vagues et Ombres including Woolf’s 2022 work, Contact, as their #1 Classical Album of the year; and her 2021 composer-portrait album, LUNA PEARL WOOLF: Fire and Flood (Pentatone Oxingale Series) was nominated for a GRAMMY Award.
Woolf’s opera Jacqueline, about legendary cellist Jacqueline du Pré, with a libretto by Royce Vavrek, commissioned and premiered by Tapestry Opera, was hailed as an “extraordinary piece, one that deserves an unquestioned place in the 21st-century canon” (The Globe and Mail). Its 2020 premiere garnered five nominations and a win in Toronto’s prestigious Dora Awards.
Woolf mentors new opera creators in her work with Montreal’s Musique 3 Femmes, and teaches about the intersection of text and music at institutions such as the National Theater School of Canada and McGill University. She is co-founder of Oxingale Productions, a ground-breaking record label and music publisher supporting new music by lyrical and innovative contemporary composers.
A dual Canadian-American citizen, Woolf was born Western Massachusetts and lives in Montréal, Quebec.