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Works for Piano

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I. Early Piano Music

1986-1997

(All dates refer to the composition completion day)

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 Invention No. 1 - Homage to Scarlatti - 5-1-1986 

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 John's first musical piece dates from May 1, 1986, the day he completed his first piano composition. Studying a Domenico  Scarlatti sonata influenced this piece and was the inspirational basis that sparked his career as a composer. 

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• A Courtly Dance - 5-6-1986

• Waltz - 5-12-1986

• Invention No. 2 - Do You Know Who You Are? - 5-19-1986 

• Janny’s Dance - 5-23-1986

• Lament No. 1 - 5-26-1986

• Invention No. 3 - Victim of His Constructs - 5-28-1986

• A Piece in Two Movements - 6-9-1986

• Minuet No. 1 - 6-15-1986

• Graceland - 6-19-1986

• It's All in the Genes - 3-2001 (themes based on Graceland) 

• Invention No. 4 - Elusive Truth - 6-24-1986 

• Lullaby - 6-25-1986

• A Fantasy No. 1 - Dance - 8-5-1986

• A Piece in Three Movements - 11-25-1986

• 4 eyeballs went to the beach and met 4 penguins - 1-14-1987

• For Bill - 2-5-1987

• Follow The Leader - 2-28-1987

• Bagatelle No. 1 - 3-2-1987

• Cascade - 3-4-1987

• Mary’s Hymn - 3-7-1987

• Lament No. 2 - 3-10-1987

• Tweedy’s Last Dance - 3-12-1987

• Pastorale No. 1 - 3-19-1987

• Bagatelle No. 2 - 3-24-1987

• Spring Sketches - 4-2-1987

• Birthday Piece - 4-3-1987

• For No One - 5-15-1987

• Lament No. 3 - 7-28-1987

• Fantasy No. 2 - Sandy's Fantasy - 9-24-1987

• Invention No. 5 - English Lavender with Sweet Overtones - 10-14-1987

• Bagatelle No. 3 - 10-31-1987

• Snakefinger's Romantic Evening Among Stars - 1-20-1988

• Ten Little Tunes for Children - 2-24-1988

• Fantasy No. 3 - Themes for El Centro (Turning Back the Dials of Time) - 5-13-1988

• Japanese Landscape (In Eno's Garden of Possibilities) - 6-2-1988 - Francesco Attesti, concert pianist, premiered this work in Cortona, Italy, S. Domenico Church on the 13th of August, 2015.

• Lament No. 4 - 6-6-1988

• Minuet No. 2 - 6-11-1988

• Full Moon Over Diamond Head - 7-10-1988

• Lament No. 5 - 7-14-1988

• Bagatelle No. 4 (John's Bagatelle) - 7-19-1988

• Dance of the Butterflies (Waltz No. 2) - 8-6-1988

• John's Bagatelle (Bagatelle No. 5) - 8-11-1988

• Lament No. 6 (in memory of Isabel Baratta) - 8-13-1988

• Queen's Suite I-V - 9-16-1988

• Fantasy No. 4 - Themes for Honolulu - 11-13-1988

• John's Bagatelle (Bagatelle No. 6) - 11-27-1988 (Originally conceived on guitar, this tune was played during adolescence)

• Lament No. 7 - Oh Mama - 12-3-1988

• Bells for Saint Mary - (Christmas Melody) - 12-7-1988

• Fantasy Dances for Innocents - I-XXIV - 6-4-1989

• Folk Dance Variations - 11-12-1989

• Semplici Danze - 11-22-1989

• Lament No. 8 (Longing for Comfort in a Sea of Pain) - 12-10-1989

• Tony's Hymn - 12-17-1989

• Christmas Melody No. 2 - 12-25-1989

• Waltz (Goodbye to the 1980's) - 12-29-1989

• Dance for the New Year - 1-6-1990

• Requiem for Mary (for Mother) I-IX - 4-3-1990

• Bagatelle No. 7 - Homage to Scarlatti - 4-13-1990

• Invention No. 7 - 4-29-1990

• Summer Sketches - 5-15 -1990

• Lament No. 9 - 5-28-1990

• Silent Timbres - 6-2-1990

• Lament No. 10 - 10-14-1990

• Know The Infinite Moment of Now - (previously titled Fantasy No. 5) - 3-19-1991

• Character Pieces No.1 - Cleo's Dilemma - 5-16-1992

• Character Pieces No. 2 - Soothing waters - 5-17-1992

• Character Pieces No. 3 - Moonlight Glance - 5-17-1992

• Character Pieces No. 4 - If Only By Circumstances - 3/18/1996

• Catwalk Petite Suite - 5-12-1996

• Lament No. 11 - 8-4-1996

• Happy to be Back - 3/5/1996

• Remembrance or Mother's Memory - 7-15-1996

• The Dance - 9-22-1996

• Themes for Edward Gorey - 9-23-1996

• 80th Birthday Jingles - 81 tonal miniatures - composed between 6-3-1997 and 8-9-1997

• Antoinette - 8/26/1997.  This is the last early piano score before beginning composition lessons. 

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  All early piano music has been revised and/or updated, 2023.

 

 

II. Piano Suites

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 Piano Suite No. 1 for Solo Piano - 1997 

• Robert at the Easel

• Sophie's Characters

• Maxon's Poe

• Sketch for Aline

• Jesse's Beat Portraits

• Finale

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  This work began on the day the composer had his first composition lesson.

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 Piano Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos - 2002

• Thore and Runa

• Whirlwind Tryst

• Delicately Sensual

• The Mysterious Beyond

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 Piano Suite No. 3 for Solo Piano - 2002

• Composers in Search of Identity

• Do It So The Country Won't Change You

• Know One's Mind

• Caught Up In The Wheel of Fatality

• Datum Exigent

 

 Nathanael May premiered this work in Cortona, Italy at the Teatro Signorelli Loggia on June 24, 2005.

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 Piano Suite No. 4 For Three Pianos - 2005

• Giovanni Baudino's Cleft Hand

• Anguish in Every Household

• Do You Have an E.R. For Music?

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 Piano Suite No. 5 for Solo Piano - 2007

• Free from Fashion

• The Virtual Liaison

• Impressions of Sampson

• Let Thy Mind Be Still (Red Dust Affairs)

• The Cruel Black Swan Effect

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 Piano Suite No. 6 for Solo Piano - 2008

• Silent Night

• Starry Night

• Transfigured Night

• Flight of the Nine Reindeers

• The Dark Night

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 Piano Suite No. 7 for Solo Piano - (Every Version of You) - 2011

• I See Your Face in Every Flower

• In Thunder

• Your Radiant Splendor

• And in the Singing of the Birds We Discover Beauty

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 Piano Suite No. 8 for Solo Piano - 2011 

• The Greatest Worth is Self-Mastery

• The Greatest Meditation is a Mind that Lets Go

• The Greatest Magic is Transmuting the Passions

• The Greatest Goodness is a Peaceful Mind (Om Mani Padme Hum, Part I)

• The Greatest Wisdom is Seeing Through Appearances

• The Greatest Action is not Conforming with the World’s Ways

• The Greatest Medicine is the Emptiness of Everything (Om Mani Padme Hum, Part II)

• The Greatest Generosity is Non-Attachment

• The Greatest Effort is not Concerned with Results

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 Petite Suite for Solo Piano - 2012

• Savor The Moment

• The Hobgoblin (inspired by the art work of Alex Gross)

• Your Beauty Radiates Through Me on this Fine Spring Day

• The Riddler (inspired by the art work of Alex Gross)

• Day’s End

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 Piano Suite No. 9 for Solo Piano - (Memories of Liszt) - 2012 

• Memories of Liszt

• The Exuberant Guest

• Peace is on the Other Side of the Horizon

• Do We Have Time in Common?

• Transcendental Incantations

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 Piano Suite No. 10 for Solo Piano - (A Lamentation) - 2014

• Now That You Are Gone

• Your Soul Travels The Cosmic Waves

• In the Interval

• A Sharp Dagger Pierced My Grief-Stricken Heart

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 Piano Suite No. 11 for Solo Piano (Dialectical Dictums) - 2015

• When the Door of Opportunity Knocks, Walk Through

• The Artist was Sequestered but not Vanquished

• What Do You Do with the Time Given You?

• Free Markets Make Fools of All of Us

• The Cruel Emasculator Goes Down in Defeat

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 Piano Suite No. 12 for Solo Piano - 2016

• Arditamente - Drammatico - Delicato - (The Rule Breaker)

• Grave - Intenso (This is Not Normal)

• Allegro - (This Too Shall Pass)

• Briskly - With Dark Certainty (The World Revolves Around Him)

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 Piano Suite No. 13 for Solo Piano - 2017 (Homage to Goethe)

• Your Sweet Felicity

• The Burdened Man's Anguish

• The Frightened Man's Tears

• Not All The Blossoms of Dream Grew Ripe

• Who Rides By Night in the Wind So Wild?

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 Piano Suite No. 14 for Two Pianos - 2021

• Saved From Extravagance and Incoherence

   I-IV

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 Piano Suite No. 15 for Solo Piano - 2022

• From Here to There Or Here To Go

   I-IV

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III. Works for Solo Piano

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 Metamorphosis N° 6, 7 and 8 – 2002 

 

 Your Beauty Transcends Time - 2006

 

 Lament - (The Passing) - 2007 

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 Dino's Dilemma – 2008 

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 Jade Ponds – 2008

 

 Completely Clothed in Sound for Piano, for Three Players – 2011

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 Lament No. 14 - “The Death of Michael Alexander Snow” – 2011 

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 No. 99 – 2012 

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 Miniatures - 2013

   I-IX

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 Imaginations - 2013 

• An Imagined Future Audience

• Like the Whispering Wind 

• You Are a Mirror, I See Myself in You

• Stimulating Inventive Dreams

• Conceptualize the Infinite

• Flight of Fancy

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 Piano Elegies – 2013-14

• Till Death Do Us Part

• Reform by The Grim Reaper

• Theatre of the Absurd

• Lament for the Ghost of Blind Joe Death

• Lost Memories

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 A Fronte Praecipitium a Tergo Lupi - 2015 (In memory of Robert Kehoe)

• A Precipice Awaits You

• Always Look Back for Wolves Approaching

• Running to the Edge of the Precipice Can Only Do You Harm

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 The Iron Cage of Reason - 2017

     I. Con Brio, Delicatamente, Presto

     II. Drammatico

     III. Animato, Arditamente

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 A circular Jingle - 2017

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 In Supine Terror of a Tweet - 2018

   Parts I-II

 

 Americans in Fantasyland (Truth Does Not Lie in the Gut) - 2018

 

 Music for Children (Children in Fantasyland) - 2018

     1. Lullaby

     II. The Playground

     III. The Fanfare

     IV. The Jolly Tinkerman

     V. Musical Chairs

     VI. Depp and Marlon

     VII. Nonchalantly Suave

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 Phantasmamusica Book I. - 2019

      (An ongoing series of inventive musical creations) 

• Musica Moderna

• Converted to a Talking Book (in memory of Philip K. Dick)

• Mindless Repetition and Constant Plagiarism

• Figures of Thought

• Figures of Speech

• The Decay of Rhetoric

• Frequency Hopping (Move Over J.S. Bach)

• Your Words Can't Take Away the Joy of Creation

• The Last Nine Steps of Thor

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 Phantasmamusica Book II. - 2020

• Spooky Entanglements

• Waves of Probability

• Entangled Qubits

• Spooky Actions at a Distance

• Groups of Qubits

• Entangled by Reality

• Collapsing to One Reality

• The Uncertainty Principle

• Every Version of Me (A Quantum dance)

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 Phantasmamusica Book III - 2021

• Musical Reflections at 66

• Resistance to the Herd Spirit

• Fads and Affections

• Original Thoughts in Obscurity

• Working in a Vacuum

• Abandon Yourself to Your Instinct

• Reshuffling What Already Exists

• Menaced By Herd Compulsions

• The Muse Has Never Left

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 Phantasmamusica Book IV - 2023​

• Loitering on the Fringes

• The Art of Interpretation

• Unfolding With Infinite Leisure

• The Virtues Seem Quite Stunning

• Fighting Against the Grain

• Sacrificing Nuances and Refinements

• To a Piddling Whine

• Finding Your Way Again

• The Perils of Middle Age

 

 Phantasmamusica Book V - 2024​  (From 365 Tao Daily Meditations by Deng Ming-Dao)

• The Void is Fundamental for four hands (there is no separation between void and phenomena)

• The Single Point (abide in utter tranquility)

• The Infinite Continuation (even death is not a true ending)

• Movement in Stillness (the deepest sound is silence)

• Rinse Away Dreams (purification starts all practice)

• With No Thought of Gain (hold no expectations)

• The Degree of Elegance (let us make it as beautifully as we can)

• Beyond all Descriptions (some experiences are impossible to conceptualize)

• Expression Becomes Formless (the form will emerge with fluidity, grace, originality and beauty)

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 The Musical Judgment - 2024

    I. Every Musician is a Music Critic

    II. Obliged to Make Musical Judgments

    III. Making a Fair Estimate

    IV. Absorbed From Beginning to End

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 Phantasmamusica Book VI - 2024​-2025 

• Perilous Times

• Seamless Connections

• The Price of Music

• Stranded in Illusions for Four Hands

• Recycling Musical Material I.

• Recycling Musical Material II.

• Recycling Musical Material III for Four Hands.

• Recycling Musical Material IV.

• Recycling Musical Material V for Four Hands.

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V. Piano Etudes

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 Book One (Maladies) - 2005 

1. - The Repeated Spasm 

2. - Sightless 

3. - The Ruptured Disc 

4. - The Umbilical Hernia 

5. - Sciatica (for Pierre Grill)

6. - Incystence (for Nathanael May)

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 Book Two (Philosophies) - 2006 

1. - A Recording is the Antithesis of his Aesthetic 

2. - No One Has an Idea 

3. - Everything is 9

4. - At The Tomb of Liszt

5. - Recombination

6. - Riding Potatoes to Maryland

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 Book Three (Histories) - 2007 

1. - To Honor the Past is to Honor the Future (for the past is the great teacher from which our constructs are built) 

2. - Passing on Ancient Skills 

3. - Unmasking the Past 

4. - Ancestral Dreams 

5. - Ancestral Desires 

6. - Ancestral Devotions

 

   Piano Etudes Books 1, 2 and 3 are to be performed in sets of three.

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IV. Piano Preludes

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 Book One – 2000 (revised 2014)

• Watery Abstractions (Premiered by Hugh Sung, staff pianist at the Curtis Institute, at Cabrini College, November 9, 2005 in Philadelphia, PA.)

• B Bach

• Gamme de Bertha

• Don't Give Me Grief

• Amorphous Structures

• Edward's Polymath (Premiered by Hugh Sung at Cabrini College, November 9, 2005 in Philadelphia, PA.)

• The Emperor's Gestures in His Majestic Garden (Premiered by Hugh Sung at Cabrini College, November 9, 2005 in Philadelphia, PA.)

• The Unexpected

• The Ocean That Divides Us

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 Book Two - 2001 (revised 2014) 

• Be Nothing

• Pensive Leanings

• Power Games (Premiered on 3/23/07 by Brent Nitta at Hawaii Music Awards 2006 where "Ampersand" was recognized as best Classical release)

• The Path Is Ambiguous

• Un Prelude e'tonnant

• Appease Me

• A Falling Leaf

• Twice The Speed of Stitches

• The Dexterous Toss

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 Book Three – 2009-11 

• Dollars for Prague

• Stillness in Motion, Swimming in Air

• For Mary Ann

• Magical Incantations 

• Humility Over Hubris

• Better Than Herding Donkeys

• Crosshairs

• A Wealth of Sorrow

• Sheep & Chickens

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 Book Four – 2013-14 

• Arcane Gestures

• 21st Century Abominations

• Grateful for The Privilege

• Cleo's Curiosity

• The Charmer 

• Velocity

• Methodically Speaking

• The Loner

• The Mad Genius

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 Book Five – 2018

• Eric's Walk Through Town

• From Precision to Decay

• The Needy and The Greedy

• Debt Carnivore

• From Luxury to Landfill

• Gold in My Pocket, Pain in My Heart

• No Donuts for James

• Accidental Music

• Stick a Pin in That Story

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V. Works for Two Pianos

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 Piano Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos - 2002

• Thore and Runa

• Whirlwind Tryst

• Delicately Sensual

• The Mysterious Beyond

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 Transcendence in the Age of War - 2003 - (in memory of 9-11)

 

 Broken Promises (Another Disappointment) – 2007 

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 Sobering Indignities (Another Sad Commentary) - 2008

  (for the disappointed)

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 The Bells - 2011

  (Celebrating a 35-year love affair and journey)

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 Music for Piano Duo (Seminal Constructs) - 2013 

• Exquisite (In stillness there is intensity as well as in the slowest of movements and the softness of utterances)

• Pi (He saw himself in every transcendental number and in every lotus flower)

• Seminal Constructs (You have to erase sections of previous constructs to build new ones)

• The Mirror (I look at myself in you)

• Beneath the Surface of a Memory (Securing our desires is a rarity)

• In Search of Truth, Beauty and Justice (The search leads to nothing, but it's the search that counts)

• Agreements Rule Our Dreams (Our construct system is the rule of law that governs our behaviors and dreams)

• We Keep Searching and Dancing (The Traveling Dancer) (Our personal journeys take us to destinations known and unknown, while the search itself becomes the diary of our lives)

• Taking the Risk of Being Alive (The Dreamer) (We live in a dream that has no beginning or ending)

 

  To be played in any order.

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 Piano Suite No. 14 for Two Pianos - 2021

• Saved From Extravagance and Incoherence 

   I-IV

 

 

 

 

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