I wrote Lacuna for David Michael Hughes to premiere at the Orleans Piano Competition, a competition that features music of the 20th-21st centuries, and which encourages competitors to perform a work written for the occasion. I was connected to David through Stephen Drury, the great pianist and new-music advocate, who had met David at Tanglewood. The piece was awarded a prize at the Orleans Competition for best new premiere.

David was invited back to perform an all-American program at Orleans a year later and performed the piece again there. Alex Bernstein has also performed the piece.

Lacuna is in three distinct sections. The first is fluid and angular and makes use of the whole range of the piano as a resonating body. The second section is a manic dance, and is in many respects a tribute to textures found in Ligeti’s piano etudes. The third section is a meditative, resonant reflection on the previous two sections.

I wrote Jubilee for pianist Jerfi Aji for a concert celebrating the 15th anniversary of MIAM (the Center for Advanced Studies in Music in Istanbul, Turkey) where I taught from 2011-2014. As the title suggests, the piece is a high-energy celebratory work. The piece is dedicated with fondness to Jerfi, an excellent pianist and friend.

Chimera was commissioned by and is dedicated to pianist extraordinaire Nolan Pearson. While at Tanglewood in 2011 I heard Nolan play an inhuman number of difficult works, so when he asked me to write a piece for him I jumped at the chance, and immediately knew I wanted to compose something substantial and that would show off Nolan’s immense pianistic skills. Chimera, as the title suggests, is a beast made up of various contrasting parts, some muscular and extroverted, others sensitive, rhythmically flexible, and introverted.