PROGRAM NOTE O The Chimneys is a setting of five poems by Nelly Sachs, the great German-Jewish 1966 Nobel Prize co-winner in literature, whose writing concerned itself almost entirely with the subject of the holocaust. Composed in 1969, the work was my personal way of saying, through my own art, ‘do not forget’. I selected…
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PROGRAM NOTE My third string quartet was composed at the invitation of the Pacifica Quartet, whose music-making I came to know intimately and admire greatly when they were resident performing artists at the University of Chicago (1999–2016). The piece was commissioned for Pacifica by Music Accord Inc., Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, and London’s Wigmore Hall. In…
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PROGRAM NOTE Excursions for violin, cello and piano, is a one-movement work of tripartite structure in which musical materials presented and explored in the first of three large sections are brought back in the last section. The traditional statement-contrast-restatement form so readily suggested by such a description, however, is not quite the mold in which…
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PROGRAM NOTE The Da Capo Chamber Players’ invitation to a group of composers/friends of the ensemble to write a short piece incorporating, in any way desired, the group’s name into its format, turned out to be an interesting challenge. Repetition is the essence of comprehensibility. But — Da Capo, today? While the initial temptation was…
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PROGRAM NOTE As one of a number of composers, “friends of the orchestra” who were asked to contribute short pieces for the 75th anniversary celebrations of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, I had looked forward with delight to writing a joyous little piece for the occasion. Just as I was beginning to jot down some musical…
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PROGRAM NOTE I Call to OrderII Promenades Composers and architects often remark on the kinship between the fields of music and architecture. On my first visit to the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago in the spring of 2012, walking around and taking in the beautiful space that…
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PROGRAM NOTE Lyre of Orpheus was composed for Concertante, the New York-based string sextet, for its ONE PLUS FIVE Project, a three-year, six-composer commissioning project designed to create six string sextets, each featuring one of Concertante core players. This particular commission was made with the goal of giving center-stage to the ensemble’s first cello (Concertante’s…
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PROGRAM NOTE Brave Chicken was a character developed by Nina Frenkel, gifted illustrator, graphic artist, and beloved friend to many, who passed away at the age of 43 having lost a difficult battle with cancer. Her parents, Marcel and Anne Frenkel, approached me in May 2017 about composing a short work in Nina’s memory, suggesting…
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PROGRAM NOTE Gaze is a short work created for “Postcards from America”—a wide-ranging project initiated by saxophonist John Sampen together with composer-pianist Marilyn Shrude—and is derived from my larger Under the Sun’s Gaze – Concerto da Camera III, an ensemble work for 9 players composed in 2004. In this earlier work a soprano saxophone enters…
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PROGRAM NOTE Birkat Haderekh – Blessing for the Road begins its journey as a spacious, gently inflected solo melody, slowly unfolding as it gathers the full ensemble around it, carving out a distinctive musical “space.” Looking at this piece in its totality, the opening phrase is, at some level, emblematic of the entire piece, as…
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