Excerpt from Dancer's Dream (310k)
Dancer's Dream was orignally a failed contest piece for nine solo strings from 1980 that finally got rewritten in 1994 for a performance in Mexico City. However, it was UCLA's Jon Robertson who took a fledgling Philharmonia Orchestra from UCLA and gave the new version of the piece (for string orchestra) one of the best performances that I have ever received.
End of Slow Movement of Piano Trio (292k)
Piano Trio No.1 was written for the Mirecourt Trio in 1980 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and it received its world premiere at Herrick Chapel on the campus of Grinnell College in Iowa.......in the middle of the tornado season. When the slow movement began, a powerful tornado struck near the campus, obliterating any sound from the musicians on stage. I always think of this slow movement from which this excerpt is taken (Music & Arts CD-635) with the musicians moving their fingers silently behind a terrifying green roar.
Salon Music was the first piece that I really considered to be real piano music, after having written so much east coast pseudo avant garde twaddle. It is like a set of variations, but the variations are often interrupted or truncated. When John Jensen got a hold of this score, he literally devoured it whole. The result can be heard from this short excerpt from Music & Arts CD-757.
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