piano Concerto (2019)
Piano and Sinfonietta [1111.1110.2perc.SOLO piano.11111]
Duration: 18.5’
Premiered by Hear&Now, Wesley Ducote (Piano), and Molly Turner (Conductor) on April 16, 2019 at Duncan Recital Hall in Houston, TX.
Winner of 2020 ASCAP Morton Gould Award
program note
Piano Concerto traces a series of character transformations that occur through pushing the material towards various extremes. To advance to the next section to develop further, these materials “hit a wall,” eventually breaking through and transforming into more pronounced versions of themselves. The work opens with low piano chords and their corresponding imagined “resonances" throughout the rest of the ensemble. While the rhythmically scattered opening begins to converge upon a pulse, the “resonances” eventually gain their own autonomy and begin to gain equal footing with the soloist. A pulse is achieved, and the soloist and ensemble are functioning as a connected, singular unit. After hitting a wall over and over again, this pulse becomes stretched to its limits and compresses inward, rendering the constant 16th-note line into a series of virtuosic ascending gestures that transcend the piece’s previous rhythmic limitations. Many barriers and transformations later, the soloist and ensemble find a way to become singular and deliver a final breath together, as one.