photo: Liz Linder
For over two decades, cellist Rhonda Rider was a member of the Naumburg Award-winning Lydian Quartet and Triple Helix Piano Trio. An advocate of contemporary music, Rider has premiered and recorded works by composers including Raven Chacon, Yu-Hui Chang, John Harbison, Lee Hyla, Laura Kaminsky, and Elliott Carter. Her interest in presenting music in unusual places has led her to be an Artist-in-Residence at both Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest National Parks. Rider has adjudicated at the Fischoff, Stulberg and Concert Artist Guild Competitions. She is Professor of Cello at Boston Conservatory at Berklee where she was twice awarded Teacher of the Year. Rider is heard on over thirty chamber music and solo recordings.
Albums
The Petrified Forest Project
Release Date: June 28, 2024
Catalog Number: RR8103
Catalog Number: RR8103
21st Century
Solo Instrumental
Cello
THE PETRIFIED FOREST PROJECT from cellist Rhonda Rider pays homage to the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, where Rider carried out a residency in 2015. The forest is home to Triassic fossils and an over 200 million-year-old ecosystem. The works here, all commissioned as part of the residency, highlight elements that make the park so special. Pari by Mischa Salkind-Pearl takes its movement titles from flora native to the park. Raven Chacon created a piece, Invisible Arc, inspired by a traditional Navajo hunting song. Kurt Rohde’s credo petrified is for amplified cello, and personifies both life and glacial decay in nature. In Meditation on Impatience, Ian Gottlieb evokes sediment through coalescing layers of sound. Laurie San Martin’s Vast Steppe and Eric Moe’s Verklaerte Holz reflect on the idea of natural beauty and the many transformations it endures. Rich in metaphor and imagination, THE PETRIFIED FOREST PROJECT resonates at the intersection of music and ecology.