Daydreams and Reflections: Solo Piano Music (Album Demo)
- Feb 3
- 5 min read
Updated: Feb 17
(or use the embedded player below) *official recordings to come
This album, currently in development, is a collection of solo piano pieces composed between 2009 and 2025, shaped by reflection, memory, spirituality, and long-form listening. The pieces draw on traditional forms: preludes, nocturnes, waltzes, hymns, and tone poems, while allowing each to function as a self-contained meditation on time, place, and continuity. Many of the selections engage narrative and extra-musical sources, including poetry, scripture, and historical events, while others remain inward and abstract. The pieces are shaped with an eye toward imagery and atmosphere, much like scenes in a painting, inviting the listener to notice shifts in color, texture, and mood as pieces unfold.
Album Track List with Descriptions
1. Prelude, con moto — Prelude (2014) A prelude traditionally serves as an opening piece that establishes a tonal and expressive atmosphere and frames what follows. The Italian marking con moto, meaning “with motion,” reflects the piece’s quietly persistent forward motion. For this album, the prelude establishes tone, harmony, space, and a sense of time through a flowing 12/8 pulse and a church hymn–inspired harmonic language, introducing the album’s broader journey through memory, reflection, imagination, and experience. LINK
2. Autumn’s Waltz (for Nina) — Waltz (2012) A waltz is typically defined by triple meter and circular motion. Here it unfolds slowly and, rather than inviting dance, evokes nostalgia, memory, passing seasons, and gradual change. LINK
3. Nocturne 1 (childhood) — Nocturne (2014) A nocturne is traditionally inward, dreamlike, and suggestive of night. This piece, the first of three in the collection, emphasizes reflection and looks back to a time when creativity and make-believe offered a quiet refuge, an interior space of wonder that remains a source of inspiration. LINK
4. Étude and Theme — Étude / Theme (2011 / 2022) An étude is a technical study, often focused on touch, pattern, and finger movement, while a theme centers on melodic identity. This piece sets these two functions in contrast, moving from structured, process-driven motion to a more expressive melodic theme supported by harmonic color. LINK
5. Nocturne 2 (in-between) — Nocturne (2009, rev. 2015) This nocturne maintains a soft nocturnal character while emphasizing quiet motion and energy. A central shift into minor tonality heightens momentum and suggests subtle conflict before the opening material returns, reflecting a state of transition and uncertainty. LINK
6. 8213 Summerdale — Narrative Tone Poem (2012) Inspired by an infamous American true-crime case, this narrative tone poem unfolds through a sequence of musical themes, moving from the crime scene itself through the liminal space of memory of the lost and returning, changed by what has been revealed. LINK
Sections and Time Stamps:
I. The House on Summerdale (opening) II. The Crawlspace (0:29) III. Pogo, the Clown (2:28) IV. Buried Dreams/ The Victims (3:03) V. The Crawlspace Reprise (3:56) 7. Excelsior — Cinematic Tone Poem (2011 / 2019, rev. 2025 ) Inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, this piece unfolds through modal soundscapes and heroic themes. Where the previous tone poem is narrative in approach, Excelsior employs a more cinematic style. It is shaped by musical vignettes, with shifts of perspective and changes in light created through subtle harmonic inflection and variations in meter, register, and texture, guiding the piece’s sense of ascent, resilience, celestial imagery, and quiet contemplation. LINK
Sections and Time Stamps:
I. ’Mid Snow and Ice — The Youth and His Banner: “Excelsior!” (opening)
II. Above, the Spectral Glaciers Shone — The Ascent: “Excelsior!” (1:12)
III. “Oh Stay… and Rest” — His Answer: “Excelsior!” (2:12)
IV. The Withered Branch, the Avalanche — Far Up the Height: “Excelsior!” (3:09)
V. Still Grasping in His Hand of Ice — The Banner: “Excelsior!” (4:26)
VI. From the Sky, Serene and Far — A Voice Fell: “Excelsior!” (4:56)
8. Bethany — Reverie (2013) A reverie suggests quiet reflection and inward attention. This piece centers on a simple lyrical melody supported by warm, gently shifting harmonies. In the Bible, a village of the same name is associated with friendship, welcome, and renewal, lending the music a sense of personal closeness and repose. LINK
9. Beneath the Ancient Olive Trees — Meditation (2013) Ancient olive trees have long symbolized peace, wisdom, longevity, and resilience, standing as living witnesses to history across the Mediterranean world. Musically, the piece unfolds as a meditation built around a quasi cantus firmus: a short, recurring melody that anchors the work. Modal harmony shapes the surrounding texture. The melody first appears in common time against a pedal point, then reemerges within a flowing 12/8 setting before returning in its original form, framing the piece as a cycle of inner calm, measured passage, and remembrance. LINK
10. Luke 8:24 — Lyric Piece (2011) Luke 8:24 recounts the calming of the storm: “He arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm.” LINK
11. Hymn 2013 (Shadows and Light) — Structured Fantasia (2013) The description Structured Fantasia is used as a deliberate paradox. While a fantasia typically implies free, improvisatory unfolding, this piece is shaped by a clear AABA form, attempting to balance formal clarity with expressive freedom. The use of the Dorian mode allows harmonic color to shift between brightness and shadow, reflecting the subtitle Shadows and Light. LINK
12. Nocturne 3 (the blue hour) — Nocturne (2018)
For John. This closing nocturne is built from stacked harmonies and layered sonorities, at times approaching poly-chordal textures. A contrasting middle passage introduces increased motion and a brief shift in harmonic center before the music returns to its opening material, allowing the album to come to rest with openness and suspension. The phrase the blue hour comes from the French expression l’heure bleue, referring to the period of twilight each morning and evening when there is neither full daylight nor complete darkness, a time marked by a distinctive quality of light. LINK
Notes on Origin and Dedication
Several pieces in this collection began as responses to specific moments, people, or texts, and were later reshaped for the piano album format.
Prelude, con moto was originally written for my brother’s wedding in 2014.
Autumn’s Waltz (for Nina) was written for my grandmother.
The Étude from Étude and Theme was originally written for Caroline in 2011. The Theme is newer, originally intended as the middle section of a larger concert band piece titled Dreamers of the Day, inspired by the famous quote from T. E. Lawrence: “All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”
8213 Summerdale was inspired by an infamous American true-crime case from the 1970s. The piece later became the conceptual starting point for the full-length musical Crawlspace, written with composer Matt Glickstein.
Excelsior draws together musical sketches from several unfinished projects begun over many years. These materials were gathered and reshaped into a piano work inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem of the same title, which, for me, evokes memories of youth and fraternal brotherhood.
Beneath the Ancient Olive Trees was originally written as part of a church cantata for Holy Week, referencing the Garden of Gethsemane, and is presented here as a meditation for solo piano.
Luke 8:24 was written in memory of J. C. Clark.
Bethany was written for a close friend of the same name.
Hymn 2013 was first conceived with text, now lost. It was written during a period of reflection on the idea that shadows exist only as evidence of light.
Nocturne 3 (the blue hour) was written for John.
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