Stillness Variations

Stillness Variations Over D are 8 modern solo piano pieces, born of a fascination with crossing my hands over and under one other to play — how such beautiful and unexpected harmonies can be made. Premiered November 2013 at All Souls Mid-Week Music in Greenfield, MA. There is no Variation #1 or #8 — these numbers are symbols for what is impossible to know. Variation #6 (House of Georgie Chains) was the last to be written, the most exploratory.

Throughout, I continued to experiment with content and form. In crossing my hands to play, transforming harmonies and rhythms, I also became painfully aware of the loss of my own identity suffered in relationship to my mother. But, by subtracting the last note of every measure — in Stillness #5 — I realized my first deconstruction in composition. Immersed in these discoveries, inspired by the spaciousness in Feldman, Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time” and minimalism, Aberfan would be born.

“Your music is very paradoxical… there’s an intelligence about it that’s informed from an interior place which creates true originality and I’m using that word in its true meaning, “emerging from the origin, the source”. This duality of a simplicity and a uniqueness is very refreshing.” Joseph Marcello, Greenfield Recorder, October 31, 2013 “Humility & Conviction”