Life According to Piano
Fleeing the country...
in a good cause!
Keith will be recording Verbs in Bath, England, in late May — and I’ll be there to “help.” Since I wrote the Verbs, and all.
I’m so excited.
And Keith: I’ll try my very best not to rewrite them on the spot. (Although I was thinking that Push really should be in C# minor....)
More about Verbs here.
Resonance
If you have listened to any of my CDs, you already know that I have a love of spiritual songs, in all species: plainchant, spirituals, hymns, shape note songs. As far as I know, I’m the only composer/performer ever to use an African-American spiritual as the lead-in to a Gregorian chant!
I have more arrangements of spiritual songs sitting around unrecorded and this is the year for the recording of all of them. I want more music for the “album,” of course, so once again I’m in composing mode — a happy place to be!
Monday morning I created an arrangement of Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. I hadn’t really thought about using it for the new CD, but, as occasionally happens, after playing some other music, I found myself playing it, “accidentally.” The melody is quite ancient and haunting (possibly my favorite type of melody, come to think of it). I just had to keep playing it.
This music really speaks to me, so my arrangement came together pretty quickly. I like it, but as I’ve written before: I’d better like it, & if I don’t then it’s my job to keep playing with it until I DO like it.
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