old and new

I've been coming up with a lot of new music, and one idea in particular which is turning into a good piece. I tried to have it finished for the Thursday recital today at Webster, but it needs more time. That's what usually happens.

I played in last week's recital, though, and there's an interesting story about that. I was on the program along with a two-pianist piece, written by Schubert. It's about 20 minutes long and it's two pianists on the same piano. 20 minutes of VERY classical music, albeit very well performed by the two pianists, one of them a very good friend of mine.

So, they did their thing for 20 minutes, and then it was time for me to play my three-minute piece, which was "Ballerina's Blues", which is about a dancer who has to quit due to an injury. It's on my upcoming debut CD, "A Piano Saga", which you probably already know about if you come to my blog now and then.

So, I play my piece, and I walk back off-stage, and my friend Michael, one of the pianists who performed on the four-hand piece, congratulated me and said "This is why Ben [the other pianist] wanted to make sure we didn't play after you." I said "What do you mean?" He said "We made a special request to the music office that we play before you so that you wouldn't completely upstage us."

This is against the rules, mind you. The rules are that the order for the recitals are determined by the order in which the forms come into the office. But, it doesn't bother me. It actually ended up being an interesting thing: my three-minute piece seemed to resonate more with the audience than the 20-minute Schubert piece.

Well, back to work on that new piece of music for me!