Program Notes with Score Video 

When composers put music to paper, or into their computer, they have phantoms of generations of composers looking over their shoulders, often lending advice (or criticism) as things progress.  Any composer who says they pay no attention to the music of the past is fooling themselves.  I had a piano teacher once who said that nothing that I write could be considered new, it was just a matter of using it or not.  Composers write music not because they don’t listen to any other music, but because they LOVE listening and, often, performing other music.

I know sampling has become a signature component of a few musical genres, and sly or even overt quoting has been part of the style of some Classical composers, but I have not been very drawn to the technique myself.  Yet, when I started using my improvisation as a source for my compositions, I found that occasionally what I was playing would lead naturally to something that I recognized.  In Phantoms, the music of Brahms (Waltz in Ab, Op. 39, No. 15) appears at the very beginning and decides to stick around for a while.

Phantoms is not a set of variations on the Brahms Waltz, or even a fantasy, but it is as though the music is “haunted” by Brahms, which is as it should be.  All of our music is haunted by the music of other composers and performers whether we acknowledge it or not.  The music is derived from a track on my solo piano album, Interstition, released in April 2025. The album explores the inner-connectedness of things.