As we commemorate the 20th anniversary of 9/11/2001 may we remember, thank, and be a blessing to all those who laid down their lives or suffered for our sakes and the sakes of others in the USA and the world.
This morning I have three reasons to write:
- The return of the “In Good Hands” concerts first presented by Cascadia Composers in July
- The September 26, 2021, Cascadia Composers performance of my Street Music
- My September 26, 2021, piano recital featuring Beethoven and Fresno-area composers including my Sonata #3 for Piano
Let’s get started.
In Good Hands
The “In Good Hands” concerts were first presented by Cascadia Composers, the Portland, Oregon, area chapter of the National Association of Composers USA (NACUSA). You may recall that these concerts bring composers, music teachers, and their students all together for one amazing day showcasing the best of collaboration across these normally separated realms of music-making. These concerts were first presented online on July 17, 2021, but there were many technical difficulties then. The concerts will be re-presented beginning TODAY, September 11, 2021, at 3:00 pm at the YouTube link (15) In Good Hands — September 11, 2021 – YouTube. In today’s program, pianist Amaya Taylor will be performing my pentatonic piano piece, Dusk, all on the black keys. She paints a beautiful picture of a quiet evening as the sun sets and darkness arrives, and I am eager to hear her in this recast program.
The second concert, which features much beautiful music which, alas, I cannot take credit for, but definitely worth your watching, will air a week later, Saturday, September 18, 2021, at 3:00 pm on the same YouTube link above. By the way, you can download all the programs for these concerts here: Complete Program (cascadiacomposers.org). This concert includes works by two composers I profoundly respect and treasure: Jan Mittelstaedt and Daniel Brugh, who wrote his The Faceless King especially for the piano student Jay Yoshimori.
The third concert, taking place on Saturday, September 25, 2021, at 3:00 pm on the YouTube link above, features three students performing three of my best pieces:
- Elaine Lee, pianist, will be bringing her gentle and delicate interpretation of my Nocturne for My Mother to us in this YouTube presentation. This is a deeply personal piece I thankfully wrote for my mother a couple of years before she passed away, and which she always genuinely treasured.
- Jared Heng, a pianist with technique to burn, is performing the scampering finale to my Sonatina #5 for Piano, a work that Arizona State pianist and faculty emeritus Walter Cosand commissioned from me and first performed in China. Both Cosand and Heng play this exciting movement at blistering speed, so I would suggest fastening your seat belts before takeoff.
- Athena VanDyke, a vocalist with a stunning command of both the soprano and alto registers, inspired me to write Aphorisms and Arias with her review and commentary on Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays With Morrie, in which Albom describes his visits, always on Tuesdays, with Morrie Schwartz, his beloved professor from Brandeis University. The Aphorisms are pithy sayings from Morrie, during his battle with cancer, and the Arias are VanDyke’s interpretation of these aphorisms. This work, written for and dedicated to VanDyke, will receive its world première on this program.
I hope you will join me in tuning in for all three programs. My 19 colleagues in Cascadia Composers have also written splendid music for these students, and this will be a rich experience for all of us. For more information, please visit Concerts | Cascadia Composers.
Crossing Paths
And, while you are there at Concerts | Cascadia Composers, why not check out their “Crossing Paths” concert on September 26, 2021, at 5:00 pm? Even the poster will captivate your imagination and take you to this very special spot, the Leach Botanical Garden in southeast Portland, Oregon.
I am particularly pleased that the second and third movements of my Street Music will receive their Oregon première in this concert. I recast the instrumentation, originally for flute, clarinet, and euphonium, to work with the trio of Alexis Mahler, violin, Justin Bulava, clarinet, and Dylan Rieck, violoncello.
My father, who lived in Washington, DC, for many years, enjoyed his frequent rides on the Metro subway system, as he was just steps away from a station. Encountering a troupe of buskers there one day, he conversed with them and asked them about having a piece written especially for them. They were excited, so he commissioned me to write the piece. Unfortunately, the buskers broke up as an ensemble, so the première took place in Rochester, New York, some years later, not in a subway station. Likewise, this performance will be far off the beaten track (pun intended). I cherish both of these movements, but the finale is a takeoff of the well-known fairy tale “The Bremertown Musicians” and is entitled “Salute to Bremertown.” I wish I could join you for this concert in this beautiful place, but I hope that my Northwest friends will come to this elegant event.
Walter Saul in Recital
Meanwhile, I will be busy on the same date, September 26, 2021, at 3:00 pm, presenting a Piano Recital commemorating 250 years of Ludwig van Beethoven. I will perform his final piano sonata, No. 32 in C Minor, op. 111. This is the one with the famous Arietta and variations mostly in 9/16 time that takes one to a very new and heavenly realm. Also on the program will be rather familiar works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Liszt, and Claude Debussy. These harbingers of past periods of music history set the stage for music by four Fresno-area composers who will all be present at this recital: James A. Abbate, a master’s student at Fresno Pacific University, John S. Hord, professor emeritus of music at Fresno City College, Kenneth Froelich, professor of music composition at California State University, Fresno, and me, professor emeritus of music at Fresno Pacific University. Abbate contributes a prelude and two fugues; Hord, another fugue based on a hymn tune and Reminisces of Beethoven: The Lone Wolf; Froelich, two of his six Serendipitous Inventions, and I will conclude the recital with my Sonata #3 for Piano (see Walter Saul’s Sonata No. 3 for Piano – Walter Saul, Composer and listen to the final movement there).
Tickets are $15.00 or $10.00 for students and honored citizens and are available at the door. I would invite all my colleagues, students, former students and friends to come to this event. For more information, contact the Music Department of Fresno Pacific University at (559) 453-2267.