Sound Diary

solo piano (1999)

1. Helicopter

2. A smile hiding a broken heart

3. Obligations

4. Hammock (summer evening in Brooklyn)

5. Harmony, no protagonist

6. Holy

7. All hold hands

duration: 11:30


program note

  1. Helicopter
  2. A smile hiding a broken heart
  3. Obligations
  4. Hammock (summer evening in Brooklyn)
  5. Harmony, no protagonist
  6. Holy
  7. All hold hands

The set of short piano pieces that make up Sound Diary are the musical equivalent of journal entries; each one was the first music in my head on a given day. Some of the pieces are literal (Helicopter, Hammock), but most are purely emotional narrative. The longest one, Holy, is developed from many journal entries marked “alternately humble and rhapsodic”, it depicts my conflicting feelings about the conservative southern Protestant church of my childhood. Throughout, the sound world is very resonant and legato. Sound Diary was written for pianist Margaret Kampmeier and was completed at the MacDowell Colony in February, 1999.