Love Lives Forever - The Story Of Concepción Infinita
In the fall of 1992, on a nondescript Saturday afternoon in late November, my wife Joice and I were home in our apt. on 7th (NYC). I was at my keyboard writing as usual and she was in the kitchen and I just happened to glance at her and there was a moment…. this single moment… when she was standing there, just standing there… completely unaware of me… resplendent in her tights and ballet flats, her hair highlighted in a halo of autumn light and gently moving with such a grace that even after all the years we’d been together… I thought I’d just seen the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life. It was only a single moment in time but I made a promise to myself right there that I had to compose a work for her, a work far beyond anything I had ever done. The Kurian Suite was completed by then but not yet recorded… and would remain in piano form.. but there at that moment I knew I had to create a full dance piece… a full ballet to honor her… to honor who she was in spirit as well as to honor her sheer beauty. She never knew about this promise as it was a silent promise of the heart. I began immediately sketching out the concept of Concepción Infinita, a ballet regarding the inexhaustible engine of creation, the engine that brings about everything we see and feel, that brings about, in fact, our very selves. I thought I might complete it in a year, maybe two. I was incessantly working at the time in a duo, a trio (soon to be a quartet) and another larger ensemble as well as writing my own work and, of course, holding down a day job. My work habits caused a lot of friction in our relationship and that was understandable. As was the case, the practical world inevitably overtook our best efforts to hold together and fate poured in on us resulting in our separation. I nonetheless kept working on the piece, looking forward to the time when I could surprise her with it, and then, suddenly, she was lost. I could not face her death (still can’t) and so abandoned the piece. It remained on my work desk for 19 years moving around in-between other music and album projects. I had a realization a year ago that it was more dishonoring to her to not complete it and, with great difficulty, put it back in front of me and began to work on it again. It’s often said there’s only one constant in the universe and that’s change… but there’s one more constant and that’s the unwavering, undaunted and all pervading power of love. Through every terrible moment of despair and destruction and in spite of all we see and suffer… there stands love… untouched in her magnificence. That’s what Concepción Infinita is about… the universe’s infinite power of creation… the never-ending cycle of creation, re-creation, invention and re-invention… the breathing in and breathing out of all things… and though darkness be inherent in the process… more so the committing of it’s creations into the light. That’s what this piece is about, and in hindsight, it’s also an autobiographical portrait of J and I’s relationship. From our very first kiss to our last embrace. It portrays the passions and the failings, the triumphs and the sorrows of all we experienced together. I have always and will continue to always hold up her memory and her spirit into the light… and will never, never give her name over to the darkness of her death… for we aren’t defined by how we die but by how we live. Her very name means joy after all. We each handle grief in our own way… and this is mine…to work against, and to stand in direct defiance of… darkness and ignorance… and to always hold love sacred as best I can. Therefore, I release this work into the light knowing full well that though we each may perish… our love shall not. I will therefore continue to shout from the rooftops as loud as I can until my own hour comes…and even then… Love lives forever… Love lives forever…. Love lives forever!
To you Joice… a promise kept… to you always… in the light.
- R.
Concepción Infinita (A Ballet in Four Acts) / Act 1. Chaos And Conception - Act 2. Gestation And Discovery - Act 3. The Separation - Act 4. Apart But Never Parted
Concepción Infinita (A Ballet in Four Acts) was composed and arranged by Russell Giffen. Produced, engineered and recorded in Ballet Hall at St.Sann’s / Cinterscore Studios NY.
Special thanks to Spitfire Audio UK, Air Studios London, The London Contemporary Orchestra, The Eric Whitacre Choir and Pianoteq US without whom this recording wouldn't have been possible.
Glowing melodic synth sequences meet jagged noise and other industrial textures on this new LP by soundtrack composer René G. Boscio. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 13, 2020
As you might guess from the title, this is strange and eerie synth music meant to conjure a mystical film where all is not what it seems. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 14, 2023
