PROGRAM NOTES

Dreamsong
Flute Solo

Dreamsong was composed during a period of time when I was living in Namibia as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and was originally composed for the flautist Denise Deter. It was premiered in London in 2000. The piece focuses on a combination of musical ideas and the sounds that I heard as I sat for many hours in my cement block house in rural Africa.

Colors from a Changing Sky
Piano Solo (1994)

This work was commissioned as a competition piece for the 1994 San Antonio International Piano Competition. Inspired by the vivid images of a Texas sky, this piece began under the working title Etude Gris (Grey Etude). I was initially interested in how black and white keys could interlock to generate passages that would sound difficult but were very pianistic and fairly easy to play. I was also interested in designing a competition piece that would challenge each pianist with different aspects of playing. Hence, the opening section presents questions about phrasing and quick dynamic contrasts, the central section demands sheer athletic strength, and the closing passage calls for a sensitivity to both color and line. In order to tie the sections together, a melodic “spine” runs throughout the piece. Initially present in two and three note cells, it expands in the central section to five notes and eventually blooms against slow harmonic motion in the ending. Seemingly disparate elements soon coalesce into and overwhelming force and then slowly dissipate, a drama often played our in the sudden changes of weather.

Sonata for flute & piano
(1995)

Sonata for flute & piano was commissioned by Tallon Sterling Perkes, principal flutist of the San Antonio Symphony, who performed it at the 1996 National Flute Association in New York. Prior to that the first movement was performed in Beijing, China, in 1995 and it is published in France by Alphonse Leduc & Cie.

“This is a major work in four movements and fifteen minutes’ duration requiring careful study and precise coordination between flute and piano. The first movement, Allegro, features rapid, energetic tonguing on the flute, punctuated by slightly acidic harmonies from the piano. A haunting, rather mournful melody, characterized by descending minor second intervals, glides through the second movement (Largo). The playful Scherzo, the third movement, is like a rhythmic game of tag dancing between piano and flute. And the finale, Allegro molto con brio, is an athletic “tour de force” for both flutist and pianist. Rapid triplets permeate the movement, ending the work with a flourish.” Martha Rearick, Tampa, Florida. American Music Teacher. ©2004 Music Teachers National Association, Inc.

Deep Blue Spiral
Alto saxophone and tape (1998)

Unlike most of my pieces, work on Deep Blue Spiral was spread out over a rather long time - more than a year. During much of that time I was not directly working on the piece, but, from time to time, I would return to it and begin to think about it again. The final push came in the Summer of 1998 when the tape part when finished at the University of Texas at San Antonio's Electronic Music Studio.