Thursday, January 09, 2014
Happy New Year and a glorious Epiphany to all! I would like to invite you to the CD release concert for Walter Saul: Sonatas and Meditations for Piano in the McDonald Hall Atrium of Fresno Pacific University, 1717 S. Chestnut Avenue, in Fresno, California. The recital takes place Friday, January 24, 2014, at 7:30 PM. More information is available at http://events.fresno.edu/events/2014-01-25-033000/pacific-artist-series-3-walter-saul. If you would like to order a CD, they are priced at $15 including postage and tax, payable through PayPal or by check. Simply e-mail us at daphne@waltersaul.com for more information.
Congratulations to Garrett Hope on his Piano Quartet 1 (2010) presented beautifully by the Garth Newell Piano Quartet in the Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers’ Listening Page 109. The opening movement, written for a student ensemble, exhibits shades of minimalism, which I normally struggle with, but Hope pulls it off in exuberance and energy and woos performers and audience alike. The second movement, “Passacaglia,” admirably sets the stage for “Rachel’s Wound,” a poignant reflection on the pain of infertility. The finale recalls the energy of the first movement in combination with the darker moods of the two slow movements. There are many fine moments of pentatonic scales in combination with Hindemith-like quartal and quintal chords, though the piece ends quietly and enigmatically on a dominant 13th chord. Well worth listening to at: http://www.cfamc.org/listening_pages/109-Hope.html.