John D. McDonald

Piano

Composer's Note:

What do we run away from? What makes us flee?
Practicing the right-hand parallel thirds at the outset of Beethoven's Sonata, Op. 2, No. 3 ("gently" conjured thrice during Fleetude, in bars 22-25; 56-59; and 139-140)? Personal confrontation? Parenthood (sometimes)? Social media and digital technology? Corporate totalitarianism, particularly in its delusional guise as "democracy' (the attempt to address the helpless feeling engendered by this one can be heard in a substantial central section of the piece, circa bars 84-110)?
The list of questions could go on for many, many pages when adding contributions to it from other friends, colleagues, or acquaintances. Suffice it to say that Fleetude runs into and from many potentially frightening challenges, finding no safe harbor except in the continual pursuit that is the practice of learning hitherto unknown music.
Thank you to the fearless Jihye Chang for her embrace of this effort, to be presented alongside myriad new etudes fashioned by a group of Boston composers.