PERFORMANCES

Face of the Deep is a rumination on water - water surfaces, ever in motion to lull or dazzle, yet ever hiding their secrets. I composed Face of the Deep for the adventurous pianist Jenny Q. Chai and her recital program Aqua Alta. It's a multimedia event, and this is my first piece integrating live music with video.

Face of the Deep is a rumination on water - water surfaces, ever in motion to lull or dazzle, yet ever hiding their secrets. I composed Face of the Deep for the adventurous pianist Jenny Q. Chai and her recital program Aqua Alta. It's a multimedia event, and this is my first piece integrating live music with video.

New York Premiere!  Face of the Deep for piano and video is a rumination on water - water surfaces, ever in motion to lull or dazzle, yet ever hiding their secrets. I composed Face of the Deep for the adventurous pianist Jenny Q. Chai and her recital program Aqua Alta. It's a multimedia event, and this is my first piece integrating live music with video. Jenny brings Aqua Alta to (Le) Poisson Rouge as part of an ever-expanding tour, that began in Boston where Face of the Deep had its first performance.

James Preiss, an iconic percussionist and teacher, commissioned my Reflexions for marimba solo in 2009, but for a variety of reasons (including Jim's own death) the piece has not been premiered.  Steve Solook, a student of Jim's now teaching at SUNY Buffalo, will do the honors on November 13, also playing other works commissioned by Jim or significant in Jim's career.  It promises to be a powerful recital on many levels.

Sinfonietta - a multi-movement exploration of varieties of religious experience - will premiere with the South Dakota Symphony under the direction of Delta David Gier.  Several years in the making, this is my first orchestral score since my Violin Concerto (Katrina) of 2011, and it's full of ideas and sounds I've been dying to put on paper.   I'm looking forward to varieties of community engagement as well when I travel to Sioux Falls for the premiere!  

Yoonie Han will premiere my third piece composed for her, the latest in a series of compositions inspired by John Singer Sargent's paintings of iconic female figures.  Miss Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth will be heard for the first time at Baruch Perming Arts Center in Manhattan, together with El Jaleo and Fumee d'amber-gris, in a presentation including discussion with the composer and with Baruch art historian Prof Gail Levin about the transformation of art into music.  Also on the program: Enrique Granados's music inspired by the paintings of Francisco Goya - Goyescas.

Very sadly, due to bronchitis, soprano Laura Strickling will be unable to give the first performance of For Allegra, a song cycle I composed for our daughter Allegra during the years when she was studying voice seriously.  We hope to reschedule soon!  The texts are by three poets past - Edna St. Vincent Millay (pictured), Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson; and three living - Dan Chiasson, Terri Kirby Erickson, Wendell Berry.  Ms. Strickling is accompanied by Mike Brofman in this concert presented by the wonderful series Concerts on the Slope.

An expanded version of Girl on Fire - now eight songs on poetry of Emma Stace Darling - will have its premiere at the stunning Fairlight Hall, near Hastings, UK.  Emma is both poet and soprano, as I am both composer and pianist for this performance.  The concert benefits the Hastings International Musical Festival.  

I'm thrilled that piri virtuoso Gamin will play my piece Mudang, composed for her, at the National Gugak Center in Seoul.  The Gugak Center is where I spent a very happy ten days last summer studying traditional Korean music in depth, inspired by the experience of composing Mudang for Gamin.  She performs with the Arz Ensemble.

Sargent's Women - my piano suite inspired by John Singer Sargent's extravagant paintings of iconic female figures - comes to my alma mater, Boston University College of Fine Arts (MMus in Theory and Composition!) on October 12.  Yoonie Han, for whom I composed the suite, brings her commanding performance.  She and I will also present a class at Longy School of Music examining how music and art can influence each other, on October 13.