CD Liner Notes

Where do We Go From Here? The desire to communicate is often not driven by a need to convey information, or the need to express thoughts or ideas. Instead, it is often driven by a want for human contact.

Tested Metals and In Her Moods were not, at the times of their composition, considered to be in any way connected or part of a larger collection of works for piano (such as a multi-movement sonata). However, later it became apparent that they represented, in effect, "two sides of the same coin," that being the issue of how to balance freedom and restraint within a life or a musical composition. Tested Metals shows what freedom can be attained through the use of a clearly defined and tightly controlled set of materials. In Her Moods, on the other hand, has a "personality" that, despite outward appearances of spontaeous combustion and improvisation, is highly intelligent and in control of every situation and at all times.

Between Shadows of Memory and ...a Storm is Coming... were written in 1994-5 as companion pieces to a piano piece composed in 1991 entitled Swamp Angel (Ignis Fatuus); the three pieces are collectively called Nocturnes. The composer enjoys reading in his spare time (what little there is of that) and keeps a running list of phrases for use as titles or inscriptions. Beyond that, there is little else to say.

This recording of Dusting off the Animal is dedicated to the memories of John Sweezey and Joseph Bednara. I would like to thank the friends, family, and faculty who have encouraged me in the past and will hopefully continue to do so in the future.

Begobs II and IV are taken from a set of four pieces for piano which I completed in April 1995. Each piece is concerned with a separate set of intrigues. Begob II has the audacity to stain the silence with its indulgent melancholia, but silence does not succumb for long. Begob IV, with eyes-a-twinkling, is concerned with upsetting motor patterns in the cause of wit and inventiveness. The agents provacateurs include devilish dynamics, switches in velocity, and malignant ornamentations.