Happy 101st Birthday to Pierre Boulez!

Happy 101st birthday to Pierre Boulez, one of the greatest composers and conductors of the past century. I was so thrilled and honored to have been present at a small gathering in L.A. when he sat at the piano, playing bits of his “Notations,” and explaining their transformation from piano pieces to orchestral ones:

I was lucky enough to have met him several times, and he was always very lovely, gracious, and immensely witty- quite the contrary image that many people in the new music world had of him from his youth. One of the greatest highlights of my career as a composer was having one of my piano compositions (Four Vignettes for Solo Piano) placed next to his Piano Sonata №3 (very rarely programmed) and the music of Arnold Schoenberg, performed by the brilliant pianist Leonard Stein (who at one point had been Arnold Schoenberg’s assistant). It was a very humbling and yet magnificent experience at once, to say the least. For those of you who may not be familiar by this extraordinary composer and conductor, I strongly suggest you listen/view to the following piece: “Livres pour cordes”.

One of my personal favorite compositions of his that I’ve had the great honor and fortune to conduct several times is “Dérive 1" with my contemporary music and multimedia group, ENSEMBLE / PARALLAX. The video below of our performance is with multimedia created by the wonderful video artist Maura McDonnell:

https://youtu.be/idhKkVV5N0k?si=sl3Ox2DeSfqnntId