SKU: A0.1083021

Lesotho Variations for Solo Piano, Opus 1, was my first mature work as a composer. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Lesotho from 1995 to 1997 when I was in my early 20s. I wrote this work several years after returning to the United States. Each variation is based on a scene from Lesotho, some being an everyday activity, such as plowing fields or looking out over the mountains. The earlier variations are more light-hearted than the later variations, which deal with more serious issues including drought and illness. While all of the variations are based on the Lesotho National Anthem, an additional song, Mohololi, also appears in the later variations. I heard the song just once, at the funeral of a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, Jeremy Rolfs, who died in a car accident in South Africa at the young age of 27. Jeremy and I had discussed composing an opera based on music and stories from Lesotho. While that project never came to fruition, I offer this work in his memory.

SKU: A0.918702

Three Preludes for Solo Piano, Opus 13, were composed as a musical sketchbook – improvisations captured on paper. They are generally dance-like in rhythm (mainly in 3/4 time) while depicting a variety of moods – joyful, sad, passionate, angry and pensive. I initially intended these pieces to be of moderate difficulty, so I could perform them, but inevitably they grew too virtuosic for my limited pianistic abilities.

SKU: A0.1083025

Five Preludes for Solo Piano, Opus 3, were written as a whimsical and (mostly) playful set of short piano preludes. I thought of these as a lively appetizer to start a solo piano recital. As a young composer it is often tempting to (try to) to compose serious, heavy pieces, as if to prove our depth as artists. In these pieces I opted for the opposite route, attempting to bring a smile to the listeners' faces.

SKU: A0.1083026

Three Preludes for Solo Piano, Opus 13, were composed as a musical sketchbook - improvisations captured on paper. They are generally dance-like in rhythm (mainly in 3/4 time) while depicting a variety of moods - joyful, sad, passionate, angry and pensive. I initially intended these pieces to be of moderate difficulty, so I could perform them, but inevitably they grew too virtuosic for my limited pianistic abilities.

SKU: A0.1083027

Wind's Lullaby for Solo Piano is the first solo piano piece I composed. I had just turned 23 years old, and had been composing for only a short time when I wrote it. It is a simple, lyrical piece with an arpeggiated left-hand under a right-hand melody. My mother, who was my first piano teacher, enjoyed this piece and played it often. I offer this gentle lullaby in her memory.

SKU: A0.918705

Lesotho Variations for Solo Piano, Opus 1, was my first mature work as a composer. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Lesotho from 1995 to 1997 when I was in my early 20s. I wrote this work several years after returning to the United States. Each variation is based on a scene from Lesotho, some being an everyday activity, such as plowing fields or looking out over the mountains. The earlier variations are more light-hearted than the later variations, which deal with more serious issues including drought and illness. While all of the variations are based on the Lesotho National Anthem, an additional song, Mohololi, also appears in the later variations. I heard the song just once, at the funeral of a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, Jeremy Rolfs, who died in a car accident in South Africa at the young age of 27. Jeremy and I had discussed composing an opera based on music and stories from Lesotho. While that project never came to fruition, I offer this work in his memory.

SKU: A0.891036

Inspired by an ancient Vespers hymn, this brief piano intermezzo creates an otherworldly atmosphere with mystical chromaticism and floating melodies.

SKU: A0.891037

A short, pensive character piece for piano with persistent repeated notes (Duration ~ 4'30).

SKU: A0.1029561

This musical piece is comprised of two twelve-tone rows, atonal music based on synthetic scales unique to each composition, which are based on medieval plainsong chants whose systemization was begun by Pope Gregory I during the sixth century AD.

 A simple explanation of this composition is that it is the world's oldest notated music combined with modern 20th-century music theory that eschews traditional melody and harmony for synthetic scales unique to each composition.

The music is complex and dissonant, although the conversion of the two plainsong chants to twelve-tone rows retains a semblance of a tonal center at given points throughout. Still, the entire piece of music is that same melody utilized harmonically: just forward, backward, upside-down, backward and upside-down, rhythmically altered, transposed, displaced up or down, or split into smaller cells and then reprocessed in the same way mentioned above.

I have also borrowed the Baroque Period techniques of the two-part invention and four-voice fugue combined with serial musical techniques that may offend the average listener's traditional musical sensibilities but make logical structural sense.

I used the Dies Irae (The Day of Wrath) and Tuba Mirum (The Last Trumpet Call). The authorship of the chants has been attributed to many saints from Gregory to Thomas of Celano but probably evolved from early Jewish psalmody carried forward by the earliest Jewish converts to Christianity, which further developed into trochaic metered poetry by successive monks. It was set to memorized plainsong heralding back, in part, to Jewish worship.

The text of the Dies Irae is very similar to Zephaniah 1:16​. The last trumpet call that raises the dead in Christ is comparable to the Apostle Paul's account written in his first epistle to the Corinthians Chapter 15 and first epistle to the Thessalonians Chapter 4. The two epistles may, or may not, be related to the Final of the Seven Trumpets bringing God's Judgement on the earth spoken of in Revelation 11. The relationship of the trumpet mentioned in the epistles to those written about in Revelation divides theologians, but I digress into unrelated matters.

Despite the modern theory, the music is still movingly visceral because of its conceptually descriptive nature. It is full of aural symbolism following the Dies Irae and the Tuba Mirum, making it a type of program music ala Hector Berlioz of the Romantic Period. The music is, therefore, genuinely eclectic because it has blended qualities of several musical periods. The final section of the video explains the symbolism.

The music difficulty is virtuosic, extremely taxing to play.

SKU: A0.1359719

Capture your congregation with this flowing rendition of a well known hymn. The simple, soft introduction, draws the listener into reverent worship, while scattered runs throughout the refrain nudge this into the early advanced level. Then, verse two ventures into the key of G minor, returning to G Major in the second refrain. Finally, the piece ends with a quote from the introduction followed by the line: Marvelous Grace of our loving Lord!.

SKU: A0.1459667

Fútbol & Rumba Piano score.