Robert Cassidy to perform Four Elegies on tour

I’m pleased to announce that the pianist Robert Cassidy will be performing my Four Elegies on several concerts on his upcoming tour. The dates and details are as follows:

September 10, 10 am – Santa Barbara, CA – Music Academy of the West
September 12, 3 pm – Santa Barbara, CA – Santa Barbara Music Club
September 19, 8 pm – Los Olivos, CA – Saint Mark’s in the Valley Episcopal Church
October 11, 3 pm – New York, NY – Tenri Cultural Institute
October 14, 4pm – Westport, CT – Saugatuck Congregational Church
October 22, 7:30pm – Hiram, OH – Hayden Auditorium
October 25, 2pm – Newton, MA – Newton Free Library

Complete details for the concerts are on Robert’s site, at robertcassidypianist.com/concerts. The score for the piece, for those who are interested, is available on my works page.

Shifting Spirits video, review on Sound Word Sight

I just received the third video from my May 2 concert in New York, of the premiere of my piece Shifting Spirits for violin and cello, performed by the Elaris Duo:

The video was made by Ching Juhl. In addition, Mark Greenfest wrote a lovely review of the concert on the blog Sound Word Sight. Among other positive remarks, Mark writes:

The music and the Duo’s performance was emotional and poignant and also quite fascinating and memorable.

and

This touching and magnificent piece shows an extraordinary range of musical material, from lush and lyrical cello melody to cannoning piano chords and delicate, glassine figurations in various forms.

The review is available in its entirety at at soundwordsight.com/?p=1460.

Videos from Benefit Concert at DiMenna Center

Ching Juhl made some terrific videos of my recent concert at the DiMenna Center in New York. The concert, which I performed with the Elaris Duo, was a benefit for Sandy Hook Promise.

I wrote the first piece, On The Death of Our Young, in the wake of the horrible shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary school. “Grief fills the room up of my absent child.”

Here I am playing it with Steven Elisha:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikvy6A7tzoA]

Also on the concert was my piece Meditation I, inspired by Dogen Zenji’s Mountains and Rivers Sutra. It’s inscribed, “water is nothing but the pure form of water, just as it is.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHCTZONjyU4]

This piece is included on the soundtrack to the Mountains and Rivers: Mystical Realism of Zen Master Dogen DVD, by John Daido Loori Roshi, available at: http://monasterystore.org/mountains-and-rivers-dvd. It has also been released on Margaret Mills’ CD Meditations and Overtones and on Helen Callus’s CD Lament Amid Silence, both of which are available on my recordings page.

Benefit Concert with The Elaris Duo for Sandy Hook Promise

On May 2 at 7:30 pm, The Elaris Duo (Larisa Elisha, violin, and Steven Elisha, cello) will perform a benefit concert of my music, along with pieces by Schulhoff and Kodaly in New York. All of the proceeds from the concert will go to Sandy Hook Promise, a non-profit set up after the 2012 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Sandy Hook Promise’s mission is national — to protect children from gun violence so no other parent experiences the loss of their child by engaging and empowering parents and communities with targeted prevention programs in the areas of mental wellness early-identification & intervention, social & emotional development and firearm safety & security. More information on their programs is available at SandyHookPromise.org.

As for the concert, I will be joining the Elaris Duo on piano to perform a special preview of my piece An Offering: For The Families of Newtown.They will be premiering Shifting Spirits, for violin and cello, and I will also perform some of my piano works.

The concert is at the DiMenna Center For Classical Music. Tickets are available now at brownpapertickets.com/event/1434131.