Red Rock Rondo Zion Canyon Song Cycle (4056)

Music and lyrics by Phillip Bimstein
Arrangements by Red Rock Rondo

Charlotte Bell
Phillip Bimstein
Hal Cannon
Harold Carr
Flavia Cervino-Wood
Kate MacLeod

Franklin Stark Music (ASCAP) Publisher

Red Rock Rondo's 'Zion Canyon Song Cycle' was previewed in Rockville in March, 2006. It was a towering success-a triumph of story telling in music. The locals loved it, as it was their stories. But we out-of-towners were also utterly drawn and carried away with the stories of a baby born in a flood, of two little girls killed when their swing collapsed, of Carnelia Crawford's anger at being forced off her land to make way for the new naitonal park, and of hotel workers who drive back to Hurricane after work because they can no longer afford to live in Springdale.

This is an important piece of work. It's important because it tells the story not only of Springdale, but also of the West as people scratch out livings, then find themselves displaced if they live in a place that outsiders fall in love with.

These cliffs may look stalwart and eternal, but they and the surrounding desert are surprisingly fragile, and the life that clings to the red soil is also fragile. Water is the thing. It floods, it dries up, it erodes; it gives life as long as it remains docile and predictable.

The songs capture all of this. Phillip Bimstein's gift is to listen to and absorb the stories, then to translate them into a medium that is at once innovative and ancient, that allows the specificity and universality of the stories to come through, touching all who hear.

The songs are now a part of me. I want to hear them again and again. I want to sing them as if the stories were my own. And somehow they are.

Elaine Thatcher
Director, Mountain West Center of Regional Studies
Utah State University
Price: US $15.99

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