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Program Notes
I. Refraction
“Refraction” is a theme and variations exploring the piano’s vast register. When composing this piece, I experimented with the interaction between harmony and register, finding ways in which they complement each other. The consonances and dissonances ringing through the piano’s high, middle, and low ranges reminded me of sunlight refracting through a window to cast rainbow gleams across a room.
II. Doorway
Composing “Doorway” was an exercise in risk-taking. As a composer who tends toward a neo-Romantic idiom, I wanted to challenge myself to adopt more contemporary tonalities in this piece. I began with rigid sets of rules to imitate atonal composers’ methodologies, but in the end, the best methodology turned out to be trusting my ear. When I stopped constraining myself to arbitrary rules and started composing what sounded interesting, the music finally flowed out.
III. Monarch Butterfly
Keen-eared listeners may notice that the main theme of “Monarch Butterfly” is similar to that of “Refraction.” This was intentional, meant to create a sense of wholeness and return between the two bookends of this tryptic. This movement synthesizes the explorations in register and tonality of the previous two. The end result is a lilting, somewhat unorthodox berceuse-like tune.
Watch “Three Miniatures," performed by UNCSA piano faculty Dmitri Shteinberg.