MEMORABILIA for piano

A suite of 12 movements for piano solo, with optional assistants.  Four of the movements are theatrical.

In one movement, a narrator selects a poem (in the language of the audience) not longer than 8 - 10 lines;  He/she does not inform the pianist of the poem ahead of time.

Composer's note (excerpt from score instructions):  The individual movement titles are all autobiographical. (Consider the suite a series of “memoirs”…) They reflect the following facts/memories: I was once very tall, but as I’ve aged, my stature (physical, that is) has diminished – from 6’4” to barely 6’00.” I grew up in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, a block away from the boardwalk, and attended Columbia. In 1960 I married a young artist named Dorothy (or Deedee), and after four years in Massachusetts we moved to Maine when I began teaching at Bowdoin College. Deedee went on to direct the Maine Humanities Council, and was praised as a “national treasure” by the director of the NEH. Her Memorabilia movement uses a musical spelling of the letters in her name -- the only movement in the set to use a name in this way. My teaching career at Bowdoin lasted more than 40 years; the “Doxology” and “There’s No Such Place” movements refer to campus and classroom events etched into my memory. (Details on request!) While within the “Bowdoin Bubble” I’ve been privileged to work many gifted student composers and performers (Abriel, Peter, Libby, Francis, Akiva, Mikyo, Nate, Richard and D.J. Spooky are just a few). This group also includes an exceptionally talented new-music pianist named Katie, for whom I’ve composed three pieces. And two particularly beloved students are no longer with us: Ezra Lamdin, a retired physician who audited many of my classes and became a dear friend, and the very talented composerperformer- electronic studio virtuoso David Gamper. I’ve dedicated one of the Memorabilia movements to their memory.