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13 SEPTEMBER 2022 / SOLO

Dream House

Dream House 1 ︎
 Dream House 2 
Dream House 3
Dream House 4
Dream House 5 ︎



NOTES

The first in this set of short pieces for piano was written in an afternoon after practising George Lam’s Suite for Cello. The piece draws inspiration from Lam’s piece but doesn’t use any of his music directly. I describe this method of writing to my students as ‘composing with another’s music still ringing in your ears.’ I find it works best when you are learning a piece and you don’t have any of it memorised yet, so the ideas, themes, and materials of the piece are still bouncing around in your subconscious but you couldn’t say exactly what the notes are, even if you wanted to. The resultant composition sometimes bears no resemblance whatsoever to the other composer’s piece, and other times the similarities are more obvious. Dream House 1 is a kind of rhapsodic dance that toys with the listener’s perception of metre and harmony.

To create the subsequent Dream House pieces I continued in a similar manner to the process used in the first Dream House. After I would practise the piece for the day I might sit down to write a bit, again with the piece ‘ringing in my ears.’ As the pieces progress they get further and further away from the original inspiration. By the time I started on Dream House 4, I had already performed and recorded Lam’s piece and it was becoming a distant memory however I still seemed to be getting ideas related to this original piece.

The title for the piece is meant to allow the listener to think about their dream home while they listen. Several of the pieces have specific addresses associated with them.

    1. Dream House 1 - The Rock Estate, 58128 Buena Vista Dr, Yucca Valley California USA
    2. Dream House 2 - Teshima Yokoo House, Naoshima, Japan
    3. Dream House 5 - The Pearl 639, Desire, New Orleans Louisiana, USA

1ST PERFORMANCE

Dream House 1
3 November 2022
California State University, Bakersfield USA

PERFORMERS

Piano, Kyle Shaw


LISTEN TO A RECORDING
2ND PERFORMANCE

Dream House 5
4 March 2023, Tehran Iran


PERFORMERS

Piano, Soheil Shirangi  



3RD PERFORMANCE

Dream House 4
 March 2023, United Kingdom

PERFORMERS

Piano, Henry McPherson  


LISTEN TO A RECORDING

MIDI-GENERATED PREVIEW




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