Program NoteLike many composers throughout the history of music, I consider my relationships with certain performers to be among the special treasures of my existence. Of these, my association with members of New York’s Da Capo Chamber Players, individually and as a group, has been especially rewarding and happy in a great many ways. Mirage is…
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PROGRAM NOTE Like many composers throughout the history of music, I consider my relationships with certain performers to be among the special treasures of my existence. Of these, my association with members of New York’s Da Capo Chamber Players, individually and as a group, has been especially rewarding and happy in a great many ways.…
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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 FOR AN ACTOR: MONOLOGUE FOR CLARINET owes its inspiration in large part to the intensely personal ethos with which the clarinet is associated in my mind. To me, the instrument in its contemporary usage suggests an incredible gamut of gestures, dynamics and emotions. Accordingly, in MONOLOGUE, the player assumes the role of a…
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PROGRAM NOTE Composing for a solo, essentially melody-line instrument such as the violin, is a challenge I have found myself drawn back to time and again over the years. Inscriptions for violin follows solo works written (in reverse chronology) for flute, cello, and clarinet since 1978. The challenge for me, all the more intriguing in…
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program note Concerto da Camera II is a work for six instruments which may be further grouped into three separate entities: clarinet, string quartet, and piano. In this combination, chosen by the work’s commissioning organizations (the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in conjunction with Mount Holyoke College), lies the work’s first challenge. While pairings…
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PROGRAM NOTE EAST WIND for solo flute was commissioned by the National Flute Association for its annual Young Artists Competition, and was first performed by the six semi-finalists at the l988 San Diego NFA Convention. The work’s opening motif is a slightly varied treatment of the simplest of ideas—a single note which is then encircled…
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