Announcing a New Piano Concerto

I'll try to make this fairly quick, but hopefully exciting. While I haven't posted much this year, I've actually not been completely dormant. For starters, I'm playing with an orchestra again, which has taken some of my free time. This might not sound like much, but it sets up the next part: That orchestra is playing my piano concerto, with the help of an old college friend. I give you the Town and Country Symphony Orchestra and their annual chamber concert at Parkway United Church of Christ. On Sunday February 10th David Peek will conduct the TCSO and Andreas Boelcke in a performance of a keyboard concerto by Bach, Gabriel's Oboe from The Mission, and my first (and so far only) piano concerto.


Again, this will be Sunday, February 10th 2019 at 2:30 pm.
Parkway United Church of Christ
2841 N. Ballas Rd.
St. Louis, MO 63131

I'm running a small fundraising drive on Kickstarter to offset my own expenses related to the project.(Most prominently a plane ticket to get the pianist from Berlin to St. Louis and back.) Please feel free to take a peek at my Kickstarter. You can buy a CD there, a score, or a few other nifty things. And anything we raise beyond expenses will go to support the TCSO in their mission to bring great free music to the community in western and northern St. Louis county.

Either way, please come to the show. I hope that you will enjoy it. There will be a little bit of something for everyone. And . . . it's free. (Best price ever.)

Sincerely,
The Composer.

I stand at the gate waiting

I stand at the gate waiting,

Watching as you saunter away from me.

I can’t help wondering how soon you’ll return

Or if you’ll think much of me while you’re gone.

Loneliness is a cloak: tight, dark, and cold

Best burned away by reunion’s bright fire.

Embers drowse, memories of fire,

Not sleeping, quite, but fresh fuel awaiting.

Absent your heat, now quiescent, the cold

Cuts into my center, slows me, tires me.

My equilibrium disrupted, gone

The peak, in trough I await your return.

How long until the return?

Two weeks? A dozen? Time enough for fire

To touch the roses? Petals drop, are gone

To winter’s heart a new spring thaw waiting.

Speranza del mio cor[1] do not leave me.

Dolce desio in absence is cold.

As darkness to light so cold

Stands by heat, empty until your return.

You are the original cause, for me.

For all my actions you spark the first fire.

T’en vai haime, alas, alone, waiting

Sola mi lasci, addio. You’ve gone.

“Please, oh please” I beg. “You’ve gone!”

Now I know why Demeter felt the cold,

Brought winter when Persephone, waiting,

Ate those seeds and failed three months to return.

In anguish she cried and drowned the sun’s fire

For a season. Just so have you left me.

But the myth brings hope to me.

Anesidora, when all else was gone,

Left at the bottom of her jar a fire.

When my passes through all the cold

Of separation I see your return.

The sweetest fruit is born of that waiting.

Now let me embrace the cold

While you are gone, that when you here return

That fire that animates me is waiting.

20 January 2018

To Mai Hong

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[1] From “Da le belle contrade d’oriente,” a madrigal by Cipriano de Rore (1516-1565), on an anonymous text.

Speranza del mio cor, dolce desio, / Hope of my heart, sweet desire,

T’en vai, haime, sola mi lasci, addio. / Alas, you leave me alone, goodbye.

We dance and we leap, erratic and bright

We dance and we leap, erratic and bright,

Frolicking joyous against winter’s drear.

We are the sparks that challenge the night.

By morning you waken us, strike in us right.

You teach us, beseech us to stand and be clear.

We dance and we leap, erratic and bright.

Quietly growing at edges of sight

We court you, we warm you, and all who are near.

We are the sparks that challenge the night.

At noontide displaying our fettle, our fight

We kindle your yearnings to learn and to hear.

We dance and we leap, erratic and bright.

Now swaying now shrinking with heat and with light

By golden hours feasting, we sing with good cheer.

We are the sparks that challenge the night.

In evening, ere fading to embers contrite,

We hand out our passions to those we hold dear.

We dance and we leap, erratic and bright.

We are the sparks that challenge the night.

16 December 2017