Symphony No. 63 'Loon Lake', Op. 411, was composed in 1988. Hovhaness was 76 years old at that time. The commission came in September 1987 from the New Hampshire Music Festival in conjunction with the Loon Preservation Society - they specifically requested the sound of the loon cry to be in the symphony. (Many loons can be found around the lakes around New Hampshire.) A large amount of the commission fee was donated by Mr and Mrs Huntington Damon.

Hovhaness grew up in a suburb of Boston. His mother was a descendant of a family who came from Scotland and settled in New England. One of the happiest memories of his childhood was visiting his uncle's farm in New Hampshire. This symphony expresses the composer's nostalgia for the New Hampshire countryside. He was tall and slender and did not drink or smoke. He loved a good old-fashioned breakfast of orange juice, scrambled eggs, and toast, so his music is never heavy, but grand, as nature's contrasting changes, wind, rain, and storm.

The symphony was written in two movements and contains two distinct bird-song themes, a loon and a hermit thrush, played by the piccolo, one after the other. This occurs in two different sections of the symphony. Even though the subject of the symphony was the loon, Hovhaness's interest was the hermit thrush, a bird that lives in the New England countryside. He had heard their calls in his childhood and was fascinated by them. They sang their song repeatedly in succession, but each time in different pitches. That interested him and he never forgot them, so he took this opportunity to put them in his symphony, along with the loon cry. The symphony is constructed around melodies which are played by solo instruments (flute, oboe, English horn, horn, clarinet, trumpet, and trombone) one after another and accompanied by the orchestra. The orchestra creates a cluster of sounds which describes the lake's activities and its surroundings. The harp and percussion (timpani, large chimes, and glockenspiel) are the ripples and movement of the water on the lake. The piccolo imitates the birds' cries.

Loon Lake had its première on 18th August, 1988, with the New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra, conducted by Thomas Nee. Hovhaness later revised the ending of the symphony (by my request) with a brilliant trumpet obbligato based on the hermit thrush song, together with the full orchestra reaching a climactic ending. The new version of the symphony was performed in the New Hampshire Festival on 2 July 1991, and this is the version recorded here.

Writer: Hinako Fujihara Hovhaness