D'Arcy Reynolds recently returned from an extended trip to South Africa, where she had traveled as part of a Meet the Composer Global Connections grant for performances of her music by the Sontonga String Quartet at the University of Cape Town and other venues. The dates and locations for these performances were:

Tuesday, April 19, 2005 at 8 PM in the Chisolm Recital Room of the South Africa College of Music in Cape Town. This was an all-Reynolds program that featured her String Quartet, the premiere of the string quartet version of Cloven Dreams, Corazon de Verano, Theme and Variations for clarinet and piano, Preludes for viola and piano and 21 for piano solo. Performers for this concert included the Sontonga String Quartet, clarinetist Matthew Reid, and the composer at the piano.

Saturday, April 23, 2005 at 8 PM in the Beethoven Room, Grahamstown. The

Sontonga Quartet presented the Eastern Cape premiere Ms. Reynolds' Cloven Dreams on a program with the Haydn Quartet, Op. 77 no. 1 and Schumann's Piano Quintet, performed with piano students from Rhodes University.

Sunday, April 24, 2005 at 4 PM at the University of Port Elizabeth Auditorium in Port Elizabeth. The Sontonga Quartet once again presented Ms. Reynolds' Cloven Dreams for quartet on a program with the Haydn Quartet, Op. 77 no. 1, this time with Schumann's String Quartet, Op. 41, no. 3 and String Quartet No. 3 by the contemporary South African composer Peter Klatzow.

Sontonga's final performance of Cloven Dreams on this tour took place on Saturday, April 30, 2005 at 2 PM, at an outdoor concert in Nieu-Bethesda, The concert was held in an open field next to the Owl House. A concert of classical music in this high semi-desert mountain village is a rare site, and there was a large turnout of adults and children. They heard a lively mixture of music including Haydn, Strauss, the Rolling Stones, Klatzow, and Reynolds.

Cloven Dreams was commissioned by Tessa Brinckman & the East/West Continuo of Portland, Oregon. It is based on Helen Martins' Owl House and on Hugh Tracy's African field recordings from the 1940's. It is a programmatic work in three sections, which takes the listener from the exterior Camel Yard to the interior of Owl House, followed by the transmutation of this material when the Little Devil Enters the Camel Yard in the third and final section of the piece. This third section represents the integration of the "inner" and "outer" aspects of Ms. Martins' home and inner life. One is reminded of the magic realism found in South American literature, with the juxtaposition of such diverse musical material.

The composer kept a wonderfully engaging online trip weblog. Read it at here or here.

You can also visit the Sontonga Quartet at http://www.sontongaquartet.com/.

Climax Films will be releasing a documentary film this summer entitled Tribute to Owl House, which is about Reynolds' music, and the influence that Helen Martins' Owl House had on the composition of Cloven Dreams.

After returning home from South Africa, D'Arcy Reynolds heard two of her larger format pieces performed at concerts in Northern California:

Saturday, May 14, 2005 - Cloven Dreams for Orchestra was performed by the San Francisco School of the Arts Orchestra at the school's Theatre in San Francisco. Visit the school at http://www.sfsota.org.

Wednesday, May 18, 2005 - Ten Day Miner for Concert Band was performed by the Gold Band at Magnolia Intermediate, Grass Valley, California. The piece was written in conjunction with an American Composers Forum Community Engagement Grant.

Sunday, June 19, 2005 - The Annora Ensemble will perform Reynolds' Corazon del Verano and Theme and Variations for Clarinet and Piano on a program with the Debussy piano trio, and the Bartok Suite for Piano, Opus 14.

D'Arcy Reynolds' new CD The Past Keeps Changing was released in January, 2004 by Dharma Gate Music and was awarded the Music Now Recording Grant. The CD features the Ariel String Quartet, and includes a string quartet, two song cycles, preludes for viola and piano, and variations for clarinet and piano and is available at here or here.

Cloven Dreams for flute and string trio is available on a new North Pacific Music CD Glass Sky released by Brinckman in March, 2005. http://www.NorthPacificMusic.com.

For more information about D'Arcy Reynolds, including a bio, works, discography, sound clips and more, visit http://www.darcyreynolds.com/. You can also contact Jeffrey James Arts Consulting at 516-586-3433 or jamesarts@worldnet.att.net.