released April 5, 2023
A Dark Goddess – for flute and strings
World Premiere recording in high-definition audio 96kHz/44 bit
Joanne Lazzaro, flute
David Warin Solomons, composer
St. Petersburg Studio Strings (Russia)
Release Date - October 21, 2019
Published by JoRazzal Music
YouTube Video - by Ken Verheecke


The Greek goddess Pasithea was the mother of Morpheus, for whom the drug morphine was named. Bringer of sleep, hallucinations, and temporary relief from pain, morphine has become the "dark goddess" of the 21st century. This brooding, melancholy setting underscores the paintings created in final year of the flutist's father, Anthony A Lazzaro.

Paintings by Anthony A Lazzaro; additional photography by Joanne Lazzaro and Nicholas Arkimovich; album cover painting "I used to watch the boats...." by Anthony A Lazzaro (2019); additional cover design & compositing by Avory Gray.
Joanne Lazzaro - www.kokopelli.la
David Warin Solomons sheet music available on MusicaNeo -
dwsolo.musicaneo.com/sheetmusic/sm-374229_a_dark_goddess_for_flute_and_string_orchestra.html

More about this world premiere recording -
“A Dark Goddess – for flute and strings” is based on David W. Solomon’s setting of a Greek poem in which a cat from the time of the Pharoahs comes to predict the downfall of mankind through its destruction of the ecology. The resulting tone-poem is alternately brooding, mysterious, anxious, and ethereal – featuring a solo flute (performed by Joanne Lazzaro) soaring and crashing through the darkly-scored string orchestra. It ends, perhaps like mankind, on a plaintive note over an unresolved chord. The cover image is a painting by the flutist’s father, completed near the end of his life, while under the influence of heavy doses of morphine – the dark goddess of the 21st century.

Ora Mithen – Hour Zero
by Melissanthi (translated by Diana Mayard)

“I am Akhenaten
your faithful cat
from the distant land of the Pharoahs.
Sacred guardian of ancient tombs
I bend the bow of my back
and leap low o'er the moat
and I come to protect your sleep
from the pallid idols of Hecate
from the circuit of ghosts.
Hour Zero.
In the moonlit whirlpool,
in circles of sorcery,
you are caught.
Your gaze clouded discerns me
from within your age,
the fog of smoke,
the cloud of death
trichlorophenyl hexachlorophenyl
dioxin.

I am your faithful cat
Akhenaten
motionless frosted agate
illuminates the crystal of my eyes.
And I succour you with my seven lives
I send my gaze into your gaze,
vertical I nail it like a dagger,
and as ice slides into your marrow...
Hour Zero
I fathom with my seven lives
the abyss of human terror.

Wait still.
Wait until I melt all the metal
from the sarcophagus.
At Hour Zero
I prepare the antidote
for my seven poisoned lives
for the one and eternal:
your own.
Wait still.
Wait a little,
for my coldness
to rise up to your heart.”

Credits for “A Dark Goddess – for flute and strings”

Composer: David Warin Solomons
Flutist: Joanne Lazzaro
Recording Engineer – solo flute (Los Angeles): Wayne Peet, NewZone Studio
Mixed and Mastered by: Wayne Peet, NewZone Studio
Produced by: Joanne Lazzaro – JoRazzal Music

Strings orchestra recording session (St. Petersburg, Russia)
String Recording Production: Douglas Lira
String Recording Direction: Kleber Augusto
Recording Engineer: Kira Malevskaia
Studio: Petersburg Recording Studio (St Petersburg,Russia)

St Petersburg Studio Orchestra Personnel:
Violins:
Mikhail Krutik (spalla)
Natalia Kalinichenko
Leonid Osipov
Nadezhda Kharitonova
Anton Levin
Nadezhda Ostrikova
Alexandra Zubova
Lilia Sitdykova
Lyubov Gavrilova
Elena Ivanova
Fedor Shalaev
Evgenia Gulman

Violas:
Sergey Zarubin
Igor Bereznev
Ilya Yelagin
Alexey Ageev
Sergey Krutik
Dmitry Chernyshenko

Cellos:
Elena Grigoryeva
Vsevolod Dolganov
Kirill Kurshakov
Ilya Yurshevich

Basses:
Kirill Ziborov
Dmitry Golovchenko