Suite

for piano trio

(violin, cello, and piano)

1980

11 minutes

Premiered by the Oriana Trio
Parkside, Wisconsin

Notes: I enjoyed working with the musical materials I used to compose Cummings Songs. Cummings’ witty use of vernacular language inspired me to let vernacular musical elements help generate the musical language, allowing me to play with an interesting “mixed” language.

I sensed that these songs had been a stylistic breakthrough, and I was eager to do more work more in this vein. When a dancer asked me for music to choreograph, I used material from two of those songs as the basis for two short pieces for piano trio. I then composed three more pieces in a similar style. Each of the five pieces has a distinct character, and the musical ideas eventually became the basis of the orchestral work, City Scenes.