Hommages for Piano, Book 3

for Piano solo

Duration – TBA

commissioned by Holly Roadfeldt

Hommages for Piano is an on-going project of very short, concise character pieces in homage to various people that have inspired me over the years. These pieces can be performed as a complete suite, individually, or in any combination.

Hommage a Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) – In 2012, I wanted to write a piece for my wife, myself and my friends at Indiana State University to perform (I did a short teaching stint there).  But mainly, it was for my wife, Jennifer Lanman.  One year previous, we had seen Neil Gaiman speak, and he did a live reading of his poem Instructions (On How To Survive a Fairy Tale).  We really fell in love with the text, and I decided to use this text in a song and dedicate it to my wife.  The visual journey that the poem takes the reader on is simply magical, and I wanted to try to evoke that journey through the music I created for it.  Since Gaiman’s work has had such an impact on me, I wanted to include him in my Hommages series, and I decided to base this piece on music from the original song.

Hommage a Kehinde Wiley (b. 1977)

Hommage a Neil Peart (1952-2020)

Hommage a Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979)

Hommage a Gary Gygax (1938-2008)

The other Hommages in this book are still being written – stay tuned for more!