I wrote Blue Horizon for the New Music National Artist Competition (Chicago) in 2013. The competition didn't happen, so the piece floated around and I saw a score for sale in the music store in Lexington (Peters had never sent me a copy). And put a picture on twitter. Holly Roadfeldt saw the picture, learned the piece, and premiered it at Lafayette College. This lovely and echoful performance was at the Avaloch Foundation in New Hampshire, where she and her husband Kirk were resident.
I wrote Sara in 2002 for Jim Goldsworthy, and in memory of Sara Doniach. The two of them had premiered my Crackling Fire for piano four hands about a decade earlier. Jim asked for it to be easy enough so Sara's piano students could play it. Having only the opening major sixth at hand, I asked Rick Moody to write the first chord. He said B-A-D because it was how he felt at that moment. I sharped the D.
I wrote Hotfingers for Nick Phillips's American Vernacular project. It's in three movements and is played spectacularly by him here. Hotfingers is a brand of glove, and Peters had been cold for a while after Hurricane Sandy; so I bought Gene Caprioglio, my guy at Peters, some Hotfingers gloves for work, and dedicated the piece to him.
I wrote Crackling Fire in 1990, rather quickly, for Jim Goldsworthy and Sara Doniach. After the premiere, I hadn't thought of it for almost 30 years (and I couldn't find my score, so Jim had to send me a copy of his), and Sarah Bob programmed it on New Gallery Concert Series. Here are Geoff Burleson and Marilyn Nonken doing it in October 2019.
