I've been fortunate to perform with the Piano Composers Group since 2011. We give free recitals quarterly in the Walnut Creek area, often at the Presbyterian Church at 2100 Tice Valley Rd, St. Paul's Episcopal Church at 1924 Trinity Ave, or at the Lafayette Public Library at 3491 Mt. Diablo Blvd. The Piano Composers Group is a subset of the Contra Costa Performing Arts Society. Our current leader is Christopher Johnson, who succeeded Justin Levitt. |
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Piano Composers Group performers at the September 13, 2019 recital at Grace Presbyterian Church in Walnut Creek. Left to right, David Erskine, Ted Holmes, Lauren de Boer, Jennie Landfield, Christopher Johnson, Marilyn Mattson, Dwight Stone, Daniel ben Avram (Zwickel), Dough McKechnie, Mary Fineman, Mei Sun Li, and Tanya Heeb. (Probably Mary Fineman's husband in deep background-- he is always assisting Mary with setting up her sound system.) Some members not pictured are David Thomas Roberts, Dick Bertand, Paul Hansen, Michael Smolens. Photographed by Martin Pendergrast |
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Piano Composers Group website, listing upcoming quarterly free recitals, composers biographies, and recounting recent events |
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Piano Composers Group performers at the June 13, 2014 recital at Grace Presbyterian Church in Walnut Creek photographed by Mei Sun Li. Left to right, Dwight Stone, David Erskine, Justin Levitt, David Thomas Roberts, Mary Fineman, John Studebaker, Christopher Johnson, and Ted Holmes. |
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Dave Erskine performing "You're a Star in My Heavens" at the June 13, 2014 recital. |
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Dave showing his Sierra Passage drawing and then performing "Reflections from an Alpine Pool", September 30, 2016 at the Lafayette Library. Photo by Mei Sun Li. |
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info@pineshadow.com
Oakland, California
info@pineshadow.com
Video of recital 2014 October performing: Summer Night’s Breeze (1990).
A characteristic of this piece is the thumb sliding down off a black key to the next lower white key, usually in a four or five-note group. This slide-finger motif is found in the rapid, blurry opening chords of the piece (too quickly for your ear to discern), and represents the warm evening wind. But this slide-fingering can be heard more distinctly in the very last section where the tempo is slow, leading through a progression of interesting chords, gradually accelerating to a crescendo to restate the introductory chords of the piece. Exploring this slide-finger movement generated this piece. Composition began spring 1990 and finished in time for an Autumn recital that year.
This video, larger (200 MB) and smaller (50 MB), was recorded by Bob Park in recital at the Lafayette Library in October 10, 2014. However, the audio quality is not great since the microphone was on the camera a large distance away.
Recorded for CCPAS Youtube concert November 24, 2020:
Golden Little Flower (audio only, video, full concert with 6 artists)
First concert performance of In the Dark (October 8, 2021). Description of piece.
