In Remembrance, for solo piano (1998)
Duration: 3’
MP3 Player
Score excerpt
Awards Received: First Prize (Original Music), 1998 Mordechai Anielewicz Creative Arts Competition
Premiere:
Russell Nadel, piano
Moore College of Art, Philadelphia, PA
Spring 1999
Performers in audio recording:
Russell Nadel
Studio recording, Abington Friends School, Jenkintown, PA
Autumn 2000
Program Notes:
This was my very first original composition – my “Opus One,” so to speak. My piano teacher at the time, Ms. Alyssa Davidson had heard of the Anielewicz Competition, a local Philadelphia-area competition for multiple art forms to commemorate the Holocaust through the arts, and encouraged me to compose a new piece. At the time, I was highly skeptical of the idea of writing a new piece – who still did that, anyway? – but I was willing to experiment a bit. I still remember that I couldn’t figure out any good way to start the piece, and was getting frustrated, so turned to some classical music to distract myself. I turned to one of Chopin’s Preludes, and realized that if I stole the first three notes, and then did something different, I could have a new piece with a new sound. So that’s what I did. And I was certainly surprised when the piece won! But I know that this experience, and therefore this piece, were key to my deciding that maybe there was something to this “composition” stuff after all. And I am still grateful to Ms. Davidson for pushing me to try composition, and starting me off on a long and still-interesting path.
— August 2010