Five Portraits for solo piano

Abstract

The Five Portraits for solo piano were written for a commission from the Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition in 2019. The work was set for the third round of the competition, and received ten performances in July 2019 by pianists from around the country. I had written a work for a competition before (national Flute Competition in 2015) but this was my first solo work for piano. I had written many works for an instrument with piano before but this was a whole new ball game for me. My process started with several months study of the truly great writers for the piano. Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Bartok and Ligeti. As a non pianist, the challenge was to understand the geography of the piano and the capabilities of the nature of how two hands can approach the 88 keys. Watching YouTube videos of Ligeti, Bartok, Rzewski and Finnissy were extremely helpful in defining for me, what is possible on the keyboard in a contemporary setting. The title and thoughts behind each piece became an avenue for me to express myself. titled, Five Portraits, each of the 5 movements is my musical portrait of 5 outstanding Australian pianists and close friends - (Daniel de Borah, Michael Kieran Harvey, Stephen Emmerson, timothy Young and Kevin Power). Using my thoughts and memories of the physical idiosyncrasies of my five friends, some of the music they loved to play and an emotional response to their personalities and my relationship with them. I worked closely with each person in an attempt to make them as pianistic as possible whilst retaining the competition-piece aspect. The performers all brought their own details and personalities to the performances, and I can safely say that I left this project with a far greater understanding of the piano than I began with.