A Suite of Piano Pieces for Unruly Children

piano, playback, butterfly net, tear gas (diluted!), cream pie, plus a handful of other appropriate props (1970)





Five short solo (well, sort of) piano pieces to help fulfill a graduation requirement. (Requirements were obviously more fluid in those days.) The visual aspect of the last three pieces – titled Irving the Clown, The Broken Ferris Wheel, On the Banks of the Hudson, The Butterfly, and To Be Announced – is particularly crucial to their “appeal.” My goal of the third one, for example, was to give Midwesterners a taste of New York City — ergo the tape recording of sirens, traffic, and other urban sounds. And, of course, the tear gas (diluted!). The score reveals the details.

suite of piano pieces 1970