Instrumentation: piano (9:00)
First Performance: March 26, 1990, Greenwich House, New York, NY
David Holzman, piano
Uprising is based on an ascending six note melody which is incessantly rising. The piece opens with a surging two-voice canon followed by ten sections that vary in contour from gracefully flowing lines to wildly rapid fortissimo chords. In essence, the piece is a theme and variations in constant manic ascent.
Commissioned by the University of Michigan Music Department and Joseph Gramley for the duo Organized Rhythm: Joseph Gramley, marimba and Clive Driskill-Smith, organ.
There are three sections in this piece that merge into each other. They are titled, “an ethereal bright light”, “converge and accelerate”, and, “gliding to infinity”.
Aria is adapted from a larger work, an opera-in-progress, called Fordlandia, about the struggle for succession of power between Henry and his son Edsel at the Ford Motor Company. Evangeline, the secretary and mistress of Henry Ford, sings the aria. In this five-part work for violin and piano, we hear Evangeline’s Aria, an expression of love and triumph, at the end in the fifth and final section. The four sections that lead up to the finale imagine a dialogue and interaction about their complicated relationship.
Instrumentation: alto saxophone and piano (7:00)
Instrumentation: piano (6:00)
Instrumentation: flute and piano (9:00)
First Performance: San Francisco, Old First Church, 1996
Commissioned by Xanaduo, Esther Landau, flute and Lee Nolan, piano.