This large-scale initiative brings literature from around the globe into a relationship with the piano. I’ve completed three of the twelve compositions: Los Murmullos; Partizan; and Les Confidences du Salon. Each is a stand-alone work, and each requires the pianist to speak, intone, and vocalize. All twelve compositions, once completed, will form a collection of works known as The Well-Read Clavier.
Pianist Ana Cervantes commissioned Los Mumullos as part of her “Rumores” project, inviting composers to celebrate or respond in some way to the great Mexican writer Juan Rulfo, and his seminal novel, Pedro Paramo. She performed Los Mumullos on several tours, and she also made the first recording. Several pianists have since performed it, once with an actor speaking the words instead of the pianist. The performances of the text have been in the original Spanish, and in Italian; there is also an English translation. A performance with Mark Robson on the Piano Spheres series at REDCAT in downtown Los Angeles can be viewed here.
Partiźan forms the second installment in The Well-Read Clavier. Highlighting the writing of acclaimed Piedmontese writer Beppe Fenoglio, it was conceived for pianist Lorenzo Marasso and actor Guido Tonini Bossi. Partiźan is a musical distillation of Fegnolio’s linguistically experimental novella, Una questione privata (one of several he wrote about the Italian resistance movement in the Piedmont region). The premiere took place on June 3, 2018, at the Chiesa di San Giuseppe, in Alba, Italy, as part of the Alba Music Festival. I would like to thank Lorenzo Marasso and the Fondazione Ferrero for their generous vision and committed support in providing the commission for this work. Thanks also to the Bogliasco Study Center for the Arts and Humanities for awarding me a fellowship that provided a most inspiring working environment on the Italian Riviera. Here are links to a short preview of Partiźan with highlights from the performance, and to the full performance.
Les Confidences du Salon was commissioned by Piano Spheres for Mark Robson's “Debussy Études” project. The spoken parts are from Claude Debussy's answers to the "Proust Questionnaire.” The premiere at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, with Mark Robson at the piano and Lynda Sue Marks-Guarnieri as the questioner, can be viewed here.