“Stolen Glimpses” was commissioned by the Los Angeles Recorder Orchestra (Thomas Axworthy, Musical Director and co-founder) in 2015 to celebrate the life of their founder, Lia Starer Levin. It is a series of musical vignettes representing some of the places around the world that Lia has lived, performing and teaching music.

Performed by Hsinchu Recorder Orchestra, directed by Meng-Heng Chen, Hsinchu City, Taiwan.

The piece opens on a bitter cold morning, leading up to the glorious moment of her birth in Vienna, Austria. After a scampering childhood on the street Nestroygasse in Vienna, the Nazi menace begins to rumble. Lia and her family flee to Palestine after sneaking across the border into Italy in a nail-biting act of bravery and suspense, and board the ship “Gerusalemme.” After several years living in Palestine (now Israel), she later moves to Mexico City and ultimately to Los Angeles, where she founds the Los Angeles Recorder Orchestra among many other musical adventures.

During the course of the piece we hear the furtive music of escape by ship, an Israeli folk tune, a mariachi band, and finally soothing, calm music filled with the love the orchestra has for their founder.

Spoken words are used throughout the piece, announcing a new chapter or explaining the music, like a Greek Chorus. The phrases are “Childhood in Vienna!”; “Fleeing the Nazis and sailing to Palestine”; “Gerusalemme”; “Shalom Aleichem!”; “¡Viva México!”; and “Come home to L.A.!”.

The Subgreatbass and Subcontrabass parts are optional, provided for those ensembles with the good fortune to have either of those large sizes in their arsenal. To handle all possible situations, there are two different parts for the Subgreatbass: “Subgreatbass (if no Subcontrabass)”, for when it’s the lowest in the ensemble and “Subgreatbass (if with Subcontrabass)” for when both of the very large sizes are available.