Concertante Symphony for Violoncello & Strings Ensemble‘

Left-hand Piano Concerto ’Five-Finger Folly’

Piano Concerto ‘Imagine New york’

Concerto for A. Saxophone & Strings ‘Springtime in Chicago’

Piano Toccata ‘Resolve and Pride’

Cantata ‘Tears of the Earth’ for soprano, tenor, choir, orchestra

Oratorio ‘Requiem for the Fallen’ for soprano, choir, orchestra

About hope for a kinder world for our children, a world in peace and with respect of nature

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A PRELIMINARY NOTE - This music is composed acoustically. It does not rely on AI or computer assist. I am purposely using an early version of FINALE software that limits the computer as a typewriter. The compositions derive thus from the generation of original ideas developed according to classical music theory traditions and counterpoint. The crucial concept of counterpoint is based on the definition of Walter Piston, that is, the elements constituting music (melody, harmony, rhythm, color… ) relate independently to each other. The intent is to keep creativity and humanity in music. . ***

As a teenager, I rode my bicycle through the crosses of Flanders’ World War One cemeteries and thought of the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ written in WWI by the Canadian military Doctor, John McCrae

Decades later, I composed the oratorio “Requiem for the Fallen” for soprano, choir and orchestra based on ‘In Flanders Fields’, as a tribute to the victims of wars and violence. As our children felled in wars, governments and business built the cannons that felled them.

Indeed, the first version of “Requiem” was played in 2018 in a French town for the Centennial of WWI. Most players of the youth orchestra had a relative who fought in that war. . *** The revised “Requiem for the Fallen” premiered in 2019 in New York at Carnegie Hall (Zankel Hall). Two performances followed in Moscow before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine: in 2020, the U.S. Embassy underwrote a concert to commemorate the cooperation with USSR in WWII; then, in late 2021, a public concert for peace took place at the Tsereteli Art Gallery, which we watched from Washington on an iPad.

After the concert, some in the audience waved to us ‘heart’ and ‘I love you’ signs on the laptop linked to ours. A Bishop, pointing to the golden cross on his chest, said that the Oratorio was ‘Music for Peace’. I replied ‘Yes, music for peace.’ The Russian public was clearly opposed to a war. Still, ten weeks later, Ukraine was invaded, a war in its fifth year, that cost over a million lives.

The first piano concerto, “Imagine New York”, premiered at the 2021 concert for peace. The organizers had asked for a second work in the program and I composed this Concerto evoking freedom: the view of the Statue of Liberty, the first time I landed in NYC. . *** The second piano concerto, “Five-Finger Folly”, for the left hand, composed years later, uses various piano techniques to illustrate the instability and the contradictions in dealing with peace and war, love and violence, with the events around us and world events.

The cantata “Tears of the Earth” for soprano, tenor, choir and orchestra is composed on texts about mutual respect by Amerindian or West European poets - texts about the children and about nature. . *** .

Videos of the Oratorio “Requiem for the Fallen”, the Piano Concerto "Imagine New York” and other works are posted under VIDEOS. Since 2023, pandemic and wars have prevented additional events.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our places; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
in Flanders Fields.

by: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae
MD (1872 – 1918)
Canadian Army