Recent Programs

Begin the Beguine,

from Songbook for Piano

by Jordan Nelson

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  Begin the Beguine is based upon Cole Porter’s 1935 song of the same name. My version of the piece begins with waves of arpeggios, waxing and waning. It isn’t until almost the end that Porter’s tune truly starts to emerge from the texture. 

 

Begin the Beguine is part of my larger project, Songbook for piano. A recording of the project titled ‘Re/Sounding: An American Songbook for Piano’ was released in 2024 in collaboration with Thomas Kotcheff on Coviello Contemporary.

 

Good Trouble 

by Stephen Cohn

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  Good Trouble was originally written as a trio for flute, viola, and cello. I transcribed it for piano as I thought it would be a good subject for Brendan’s virtuosity and spirit. The title and the tone are, of course, a salute to John Lewis and his famous quote regarding human rights and the urgency to object when they are violated. The work is intended to project a strong but playful inspiration to stand up to injustice when right action is needed.

 

 

Preludes for Piano,

H14 (2026)

by Hank Schlinger

These seven preludes for piano, I hope, convey a range of musical colors and emotions. I gave them French subtitles because I thought it made them sound more exotic.

Prelude #1 in D minor (La petite marche triste) – as the title (“The Sad Little March”)suggests, this is a short march-like prelude, which begins innocuously enough with a doleful theme but builds in energy before the melody switches hands and ends as dolefully as it began.
Prelude #2 in B-flat Major (Rêverie) – This prelude (“Reverie”) is meant to convey a dreamy feeling, although there is a more urgent middle section with the right hand playing single notes in the upper register while the left hand plays single notes in the lower register (à la Beethoven) before returning to the reverie.
Prelude # 3 in F# minor (Mélancolie interrompue) – as the title (“Interrupted
Melancholy”) suggests, this prelude is meant to convey a melancholic feeling
interrupted by more worried or anxious feelings before returning to the melancholy. The flow of the music reminds me of a barcarolle, and this is marked at the beginning of the score for the performer.
Prelude # 4 in E-flat Major (Mouvement perpétuel) – I titled this brief prelude “Perpetual Movement” because it is marked Presto, with markings to the performer to play it briskly with verve.
Prelude # 5 in C minor (Valse sombre) – this prelude is subtitled “Somber Waltz,” which really only describes the first part of the prelude, begins in the lower registers in C minor before moving to C# minor. But then the music gains more energy and speed making the waltz sound out of control before it resolves with a majestic C# major theme, which eventually dies down to return to the gloomy last measure.
Prelude # 6 in D minor (Rêve Confus) – This prelude, titled “Confused Dream,” is nominally in D minor and is meant to convey how dreams are often confusing and without meaning.
Prelude # 7 in A minor (Presserentiment) – This final prelude, titled “Premonition,” begins in 5/4, but throughout changes time signatures, and is meant to convey the anxious urgency that something unpleasant or bad might happen.

 

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tides -

by Alexander Zhu

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 Like many composers, I have long been fascinated by the combination of electronic and acoustic instruments. This pairing is extremely common in the popular music world but relatively new in the classical music world. My background in composition started in the film music world, where blending electronics and acoustic instruments is part of most composer’s daily practice. My goal is to normalize the use of electronics in classical music settings by writing accessible, pleasing music with equally playable, appealing electronics parts. In particular, I find that most analog synthesizers are as complex, capable, and artistic as any acoustic instrument.

  This piece’s title derives from the tidal bore of the Qiantang River in China's Zhejiang Province, where my father’s ancestors originate. This tidal action is the largest in the world, called in Chinese "The Silver Dragon." The incoming tide forms waves that can rise to a height of 30 feet, and travels up the river at speeds of up to 25 mph against the direction of the river's current. It can be seen from miles away. This immense motion is created by swirling 16th note patterns that build up through the first half of the piece. As the musical tide reaches its peak, the energy dissipates into a slower section where the pianist is encouraged to play part of the piece on a synthesizer, or play along with an electronics track. A fragment of a Chinese folk tune about the Qiantang river floats delicately above this texture. The music begins to move again after a while, but this time in a calm, undulating, recessive way, distantly reminiscent of Midwest Emo rock music - perhaps like a tide slowly making its way back to sea.

I am deeply influenced by the feeling anemoia: nostalgia for a time/place that one has never experienced. As of writing this, I have not yet seen the Silver Dragon in person.

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Bent -

by Liviu Marinescu

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  Liviu Marinescu's works have been performed by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic, Orchestra 2001 in Philadelphia, and the National Radio Orchestra in Bucharest. He has taught at the Colburn Conservatory, Concordia College, West Chester University, and University of Maryland, and since 2002, he has been directing the music composition and theory departments at California State University Northridge. His debut at the Bucharest International New Music Festival when he was 21 years old, was noted by the Parisian newspaper Le Monde de la Musique, which described one of the concerts he organized with other young composers and artists as being "inventive in its evolution, content, and substance," and promoting an "anti-conformist view." Soon after, the Bucharest newspaper Actualitatea Muzicala acknowledged that Liviu Marinescu "not only has the intelligence and maturity expected from a modern artist, but also the ability to express himself through sounds in a convincing way." In the U.S., his music has been praised by numerous publications, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, while the critics of The Strad and New York Concert Review recognized its "real expressive power and attractive rhetoric” and "majestic assertiveness."

  Marinescu's early works, such as his first String Quartet from 1990 and the Chamber Concerto of 1993, focused on the exploration of heterophony and sound mass. Following Edwin London's invitation to study in the U.S. in 1994, Marinescu developed a growing interest in the distortion of established compositional forms and practices, by mixing styles, and using paraphrases and quotations. In recent years, a renewed interest in combining acoustic instruments with electronic sounds has led to the development of a more personal musical language, which brings together techniques and ideas derived from the study of archetypes, heterophony, spectralism, and computer music.

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 Bent for piano and electronics aims to create a sonic landscape in which the boundaries set by equal temperament and the attack/decay qualities of the acoustic piano are constantly challenged and expanded. The title describes the act of bending or distorting piano sounds through the use of electronics. On stage, the soloist is accompanied by 22 pre-recorded audio samples, initially processed through the computer and eventually triggered throughout the performance by an assistant. The first version of Bent was composed in 2015 for Gary Barnett, with further modifications to the score and electronics made in 2019 and 2026. The final iteration of this work was performed for the first time at the Colburn School in Los Angeles by Brendan White.

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That's Vague 

by Brendan White

My little piece was born on the ukulele. I was trying to get away from the piano, where my fingers sometimes move too easily. And to get away from the pressure of writing "good" or "profound" music, I decided to make myself a little pop tune, singing about how my back was hurting that day. Later I realized I like the initial idea enough to experiment more with it on the piano, and the piece grew into its current form. The title comes from the vague sense of tonality permeating the piece, where it's not always clear what key the piece is in, or if it has a key. It was completed in early 2021, following the difficult winter holiday season of 2020-2021. 

 

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51 Nocturnes

by Daniel Lentz

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Following in the long tradition of nocturnes written for solo piano, Daniel Lentz wrote a series of 51 miniature nocturnes, all strung together to make a single piece of music. There is no break between them and, at times, it is difficult to tell where one ends and another begins. Some are extremely short, only a few seconds long, while the longest is perhaps 30 seconds.  Though generally peaceful, the nocturnes convey a sense of restlessness that matches what many experience as they attempt to wind down at night. 

 The Nocturnes were written to celebrate a friend's 51st birthday. 

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Caprice 

by Stephen Cohn

 

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Caprice was written for Brendan White. Having worked with Brendan in the past, when he premiered another composition of mine, I noticed how quickly he understood complex rhythmic notational and challenging structures. I was very pleased with his interpretation of my work.

 

While working together, we had some conversations around the idea of over-intellectualized music resulting in works that are neither fun to play nor to listen to. I flashed back to a quote by Suzanne K Langer from her influential book, Problems of Art, which I always remember from my college philosophy class. Paraphrasing her response when asked to define art , “It is the expression of a feeling in a medium that does it more successfully than could be done with language”

So, with all that in mind, Caprice swings in another direction. I pulled ideas from my notebook, some of which were originally written for other instruments, that are the expression of pure energy, playfulness and joy. The first theme, which recurs in a rondo-like fashion, does have some entropic decay and there is one section more contemplative and, perhaps longing, but the joy, energy and playful spirit prevail in the end.

 

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Burlesque,

from Five Pieces for Solo Piano, Op. 15 

by George N. Gianopoulos

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  Five Pieces for Solo Piano, Op. 15 is a very personal work for me. It represents the culmination of my understanding of the concert grand piano. Through intense study of how composers developed the instrument since its creation and the technical advancement of performers, this cycle explores the full emotional range of the keyboard. The Burlesque opens with a seductive and sinuous right hand theme while the accompaniment keeps up with syncopated chords. After dancing around irregular rhythmic patterns, a diminished descent allows room to breathe, briefly, into a harmonically instable slow section. This quickly grows into perhaps the most brutal music of the entire cycle before dying away and allowing a sense of reprise – just before the recapitulation of the opening material, pushing the performer to the height of their virtuosity.

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