UMA Music Professor's Work, Celestial Frost, to be Released Digitally by MMC Recordings
Celestial Frost, a 20th century electronic music composition by UMA Professor of Music Russ Lombardi, is being released on May 6th as part of Musicscapes Volume One, a digital album produced and distributed by MMC Recordings.
Celestial Frost, says Professor Lombardi "was inspired from viewing a time-lapse documentary film of microscopic ice crystals forming into infinite patterns. This, combined with observations of ice patterns in the Maine woods and ponds, forms the mesmerizing composition imagining the sounds produced by these crystalline structures."
Professor Lombardi earned his Bachelor of Music degree from Berklee College of Music and his Master of Music degree from New England Conservatory. Prior to arriving at UMA, Lombardi taught at Berklee College and performed in rock and jazz ensembles across the country on fretless electric bass. In 1996 two of his classical chamber works premiered at Carnegie Hall.
Professor Lombardi has taught at UMA for the past eleven years in the school's renowned Jazz and Contemporary Music Program. He currently plays piano with students in the UMA Café Jazz Ensemble for community events. He also plays with his own professional group, the Prism Jazz Ensemble.
This past fall, another one of Lombardi's compositions, a string quartet titled Glissening, was released my MMC Recordings on its Perspectives album. National reviews describe the string quartet as "… in the Second Viennese tradition… what's happening now in the ‘tonal' world of contemporary music… attractive and interesting… works well as absolute music… played with delight by the Moyzes String Quartet of Bratislava, Czech Republic."
MMC plans to distribute two of Professor Lombardi's six-flute compositions which were recorded in Boston last November. The flute compositions have been performed across America prior to recording. MMC also plans to distribute an orchestral piece Lombardi composed, Tonisadie, which will be performed and recorded this summer in the Czech Republic by the Pilsen Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Vit Micka. The recording of the orchestral piece is funded by Professor Lombardi's recent UMA Trustee Professorship Award.
The album, Musicscapes Volume One, on which Celestial Frost appears, is being released exclusively in a digital format. "Digital only releases are the wave of the future," says Lombardi. "In five years," he predicts "they will be the predominant format for the distribution of music."
Digital, as well as CD releases by MMC Recordings are distributed extensively and worldwide. MMC partners with IODA (Independent Online Distribution Alliance) to distribute its digital releases to the most popular musical download sites on the internet, including iTunes, Rhapsody, Live365.com, MP3.com, amazon.com, Napster, Classical.com, MusicMatch, MSN Music and more than 250 others.
Professor Lombardi is currently on sabbatical completing his jazz harmony textbook. He lives in Smithfield with his wife Gail, who works for the Maine Department of Education, and moonlights as a professional photographer.