Lately, I've been making my way to Mountain Top Music on Friday mornings to rehearse with my friend and colleague Chris Nourse. We are preparing a program of music for violin and piano. I've lost track of how many such concerts we've prepared together, but I am enormously grateful to get another chance to undertake this work, or is it play? After all, we don't call it "working" the violin or piano. 

     Our program includes a brand new sonatina of mine that I finished this past summer. It's a set of four movements in different moods that all seem to relate to an idea I've been playing with for a very long time: that we are all in the same situation in this very temporary and changeable life. The title of the sonatina is "We are all in one Pond." The title came from some art-therapy I engaged with a few years back. The photo below might give you a hint about the themes that were running through my mind when I made that piece of art. Then somehow, similar themes emerged when I began writing this sonatina last spring. I crafted them into a piece that includes these movements "We are all in one pond,"  "Heaven is a resting place," "There is always time for adagio," and "We might as well dance." 

After this new sonatina, we'll play two excerpts from a Keith Jarrett sonata for violin and piano. You did read that correctly, even though you may be thinking "isn't Keith Jarrett a jazz pianist?" That is certainly true, but Jarrett wrote some interesting chamber music as well and played with other classical musicians of his day. We've had fun making sense of two movements from his sonata: "Song" and "Dance." The first movement reminds me somehow, of Hindemith's Trauermusik; it has depth and a certain inexorableness in it. Both the violin and the piano get to explore the edges of their instrument's sound range. The dance movement is quite fun and might be taken in as a form of contemplative movement in the interpretation we've developed for it. 

We'll end the program with an old favorite of ours: Antonin Dvorăk's sonatina for violin and piano. Dvorak wrote this for his own children to play. Chris and I have worked on this music many times with various students over the years. It's been a great joy to play it together. 

We'll be performing this program on Friday, December 5 at 1 PM at The Majestic Theater in Conway. This is part of Mountain Top Music Center's First Friday series: a brainchild of Chris's which began in 2016 or so. Admission is free and donations support Mountain Top Music Center. 

Music for Earthlings 

All of us here live surrounded by another living being—the forest around us. Mary Edes and I are weaving together the sounds of the earth and forest with those of local musicians for a concert titled “Music for Earthlings.” On Thursday, June 12 at 7 PM many community musicians convene at The Brick Church for the Performing Arts in Lovell, Maine, to share celebratory music about living in our forest.

“This Forest is Alive,” a classical work I composed for narrator, forest sounds, string trio, and woodwind trio makes up most of this concert. My good friend Mary Edes narrates this work while a string trio (Tim Arnold, myself, and Chris Nourse) and a woodwind trio (Julia Edwards, Mike Sakash, and Nancy Goldenhar) play miniatures depicting the life of the forest around us. Recorded bird song, including a Robin who summered on Davis Hill in 2020, complete the mix. Later in the program, the chorus will join the instrumentalists for hymns to the beauty of the earth. Serena DiNucci, marimba, and Jenny Huang-Dale, cello, also join the instrumental ensemble.

Tickets to the concert are $15 and are available at the door. The Brick Church for The Performing Arts is at 502 Christian Hill Road in Lovell, ME. The building is air conditioned. 

 Musical Renewal

On Sunday February 2nd at 3:00 PM, I get to play chamber music with friends and students at Fryeburg New Church. Playing music I love with others is a great path to renewal for me. 

Music lovers should expect Vivaldi's Concerto in a minor for violin and, in this case, viola. This piece is usually played with a string orchestra but Ellen and one of her students will perform the work with two stringed instruments. Also on the program is a piano solo by the composer Margaret Bonds; an African American composer who gained recognition in the 1930s and continued composing through the 1960s. The title of the solo to be played is The Valley of the Dry Bones. It relates to the biblical text in the book of Ezekial that describes dry bones coming to life and dancing. It is a jubilant work merging idioms from classical piano and jazz and capturing the spirit of renewal. When I play it, I try to think the words of the spiritual on which it is based: “These old bones of mine shall rise together in the morning.”

Ethan Chalmers, violinist, joins me to present Eugene Ysaye's piece Reve d'Enfant. This very late romantic work includes extended harmonies and haunting melodies. Jane O'Brien, flutist, will join me to perform Nino Rota's Five Pieces for Flute and Piano. Several of my teen students will present pieces they have been polishing over the last few months.

Fryeburg New Church houses a beautiful piano and offers concerts open to everyone. Donations are welcome but not required. Donations support the work of Fryeburg New Church in the community.