Little Pieces from My Heart

Little Pieces from My Heart

Instrumentation: Flute, Piano, Percussion, Strings
Movements and length

  1. Singing, 2:06
  2. Sweet Peas, 3:18
  3. Pyrets Polska, 4:48
  4. The Ruby that Fell from the Sky, 4:01
  5. Night Terror, 1:50
  6. Pavane, 5:23
  7. The Snake Charmer, 3:48

©2004
Publisher: Reese & Hassing Music

Description

Little Pieces From My Heart is a suite of short compositions that tell stories about my family. We are a family of story-tellers. Big family gatherings inevitably end with one of us telling the others a story on someone. When I got the commission from the San José Chamber Orchestra, I decided to take my inspiration from these family stories. A story about my Swedish grandmother became the dance Pyrets Polska. I explore Middle-Eastern melody and rhythm in The Snake Charmer, a story about my mother. Pavane communicates a child’s first understanding of death with a concerted story for violin and viola. In Sweet Peas, a string quartet solos with the orchestra to describe feeling I had when my mother put these flowers in my room. In Singing, I treat the orchestra as a choir to celebrate my daughter’s joy in singing.