For Piano solo, Violin, Cello, Flute, Clarinet, Synthesizer, and Organ Synthesizer
(Version available for Piano and Orchestra, 2.2.2.2 – 4.2.3.0 – Timp – Strings)
Premiered April 9th at Rodef Shalom’s Levy Hall with Soloist Amaury Morales and Confluence Music Ensemble
Piano Concerto
I. Andante
II. Allegro
III. Lento (attaca)
IV. Presto
This piece was nearly titled “confrontation with the void” and is considered the sister piece of Nut Devours the Sun which premiered on the same concert. Nut devours the sun is a ballet about the sun being swallowed by Nut, the Egyptian goddess of the night. The piano concerto follows the same arc but from a very different sound world that focuses on the individual confronting the unknown, whereas Nut devours the sun focuses on the impersonal process of transformation. There is a sound presented in the opening bars of the concerto that is cold, alluring, mystical, curious, and dark, this is the void and it must be confronted carefully. To me it is the feeling that awakens when in a new dark place, or an uncertain and dangerous situation with a stranger, or in combat with a challenger we have never seen, it is a feeling that we are looking at a chaotic potential that we must deal with but which we do not understand, this feeling calls out of us a hidden strength that we identify as heroic.