Ann Silsbee

Piano

Composer's Note:

A simple request some years ago for piano pieces of intermediate difficulty generated a pleasurable sideline activity of composing short unpretentious pieces for piano with a sort of natural "singing my song" feel to them. Some of the pieces do make considerable musical and technical demands on the player, but none require a "virtuosic" technique for performance. May they take their place among their musical ancestors from Byrd to Bartok, in a piano repertoire rich with such short works.

The three "Ceremonies," exploring some of the simpler aspects of the alternating scale, provide an imaginative and harmonic structural framework to the collection, between which the other images wander like scenes in a village landscape, forming their own loosely connected pianistic world. Although I consider that the seven pieces form a group, they may be performed individually also.