Michael Zev Gordon, the composer, aims to reconcile tonal and less tonal elements in his music, drawing from a wide range of influences like Bach, Brazilian jazz, Brahms, and Jewish liturgical chant.
Recording & Production
This album was recorded in The Elgar Concert Hall at the University of Birmingham on September 11-12, 2022, at a high resolution of 24-bit/192 kHz.
Composition History
The 'Diary Pieces' are an ongoing series of small solo piano pieces, grouped in sevens, with most written in a single day to quickly capture a feeling, nuance, or image.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Composer Michael Zev Gordon's 'Diary Pieces' evoke the poignant gap between absence and presence, and the fleetingness of memory, similar to Schumann's use of fragmentation in his piano miniatures.
Performer Biography
Joseph Houston, the pianist on this recording, is a British pianist based in Berlin whose performance practice includes contemporary, experimental, and late 19th/early 20th-century piano music, as well as his own compositions.
Composer Biography
Michael Zev Gordon, the composer, has won the British Composer Awards twice for choral works and a Prix Italia for radiophonic composition.
