CD review of Distant Mirrors by Rhonda Larson

Artist’s Name: Rhonda Larson
Album Name: Distant Mirros
Total Time: 55:10

If you know Rhonda personally, you will realize that this album is as effervescent and filled with moods as she herself is. I have met her once over a lunch in New Haven, and I can easily see her own personality very well tuned into this album.

It’s floating, mysteriously deep, and carries a secret message for a true voyager. I could sense the childlike humor of Rhonda at multiple points in the album, but at the same time could easily recognize the depth, virtuosity, and surprising control she has on the flute and the magic this beautiful instrument could weave.

I felt sitting on a bank of a river while listening to ‘Anantariva’. It felt like some Indian bamboo flutes were calling me from a distant lands. In the ‘Armenian Allure’, you could easily notice the pugmarks of music anthropology, and a carnival-like tapping.

You will get a mixture of spirited numbers mixed in multiple drum-beats, and contrasting reflective numbers which will allow you to travel over long-distances without any sense of time elapsed.

Flute is a wonderful instrument–it requires sensitivity and creative ingenuity mixed with speed, variety, and understanding of rhythmic cycles.

Rhonda has put her spirit in this album–you will be amazed to see (or hear as I should say) the beauty of it!