Pianist Yael Manor has released a wonderful new disk of solo music that includes a piece of mine she premiered last winter at the Tenri Cultural Center in NYC. The disk is called Elixir, and it’s available everywhere stuff like that is available. Tomorrow night (Tues, June 9) she is performing a recital at Beethoven Pianos in NY featuring works on the recording:
Lawrence Dillon Honey
Frederick Tillis Spiritual Fantasy No. 4
Karl Kroeger Toccata for Piano
Richard Cameron-Wolfe Code of Un-Silence: A Prayer
JunYi Chow It Rained! The Ants Ran…
Reinaldo Moya Rayuela Preludes
Robert Parris Variations for Piano
Here is info on the concert and recording: http://composers.com/yael-manor-Elixir-Recording-2015
Honey was written in 2012, my first solo piano piece after a 10-year hiatus. As is typical of a lot of my works over the last few years, the score comes with a brief exordium:
Open the tomb and you will find a jar. Break the seal, and taste. See?
Thousands of years have not dented its flavor, armies and thieves have not quickened its flow.
Watch it spread in a puddle on your plate,
it slows down the tongue,
brings sovereignty to plain surroundings.
Use it as a name for the one to whom you adhere,
though everything else dissolves. Use it as a prayer that binds you to your moment,
that binds you to moments long before you were born,
and long after your moment
has faded and dispersed.
Honey is a meditation on the texture, longevity and adaptability of an 8000-year-old source of sweetness. Its four sections flow over and through one another, blending the glittering fluidity of the opening, a stately choral texture and a brief aria into a final exuberant dance.