Dirk Caber's "Edification and Amusement," a rag for four hands that he wrote when he was 17. Note that this has never been properly recorded; the version here was recorded from a MIDI file of the original sheet music.

—Jesse Jackman

Find Dirk Caber at http://facebook.com/dirkcaber, http://twitter.com/dirkcaber, or on his NSFW blog at http://dirkcaber.com.

Dirk Caber - Edification and Amusement

Dirk Caber's "Piano Miniature No. 1," the first in a series of 24 piano miniatures, none longer than about 3 minutes. Twelve of the miniatures have already been recorded; we are hoping to eventually raise sufficient funds to record the remaining 12 and release them all as an album.

—Jesse Jackman

Find Dirk Caber at http://facebook.com/dirkcaber, http://twitter.com/dirkcaber, or on his NSFW blog at http://dirkcaber.com.

Dirk Caber - Piano Miniature No. 1 in C major

Dirk Caber's "Piano Miniature No. 6," the sixth in a series of 24 piano miniatures, none longer than about 3 minutes. Twelve of the miniatures have already been recorded; we are hoping to eventually raise sufficient funds to record the remaining 12 and release them all as an album.

—Jesse Jackman

Find Dirk Caber at http://facebook.com/dirkcaber, http://twitter.com/dirkcaber, or on his NSFW blog at http://dirkcaber.com.

Dirk Caber - Piano Miniature No. 6: Vigoureux

When Dirk lived in New York several years ago, he shared a modest one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side with a roommate, a dog, and a very large Steinway grand piano. Early one morning (at 5 am, I think; good thing the apartment was soundproofed!) he sat down at that piano to record this nocturne. I think it’s beautiful beyond description.

He wrote it for his mother.

Just another one of the countless reasons why I love him.

—Jesse Jackman

Find Dirk Caber at http://facebook.com/dirkcaber, http://twitter.com/dirkcaber, or on his NSFW blog at http://dirkcaber.com.

Dirk Caber - Nocturne

The Mount Desert Island Suite was written to commission for the sadly now defunct Penobscot Bay Chamber Music Festival in Bar Harbor, Maine. The music is simpler than much of what I write, partly because I anticipated very little rehearsal time and I wanted something easy for busy musicians to grasp. The four movements reflect four quatrains of a poem by Cora Millay (mother of Edna St. Vincent Millay) reflecting on different aspects of Mount Desert Island in her home state of Maine; the first depicts the gulls wheeling over the rocks and spray at the coast; the second, the owls in the quiet old-growth pine forests. This third is of sandpipers dodging the ripples on the sand at the water’s edge, and the last conveys the bustle of downtown Bar Harbor. This piece remains close to my heart as an impression of the sort of Maine coastline I grew up on and which is still home to me in many ways.

—Dirk Caber

Find Dirk Caber at http://facebook.com/dirkcaber, http://twitter.com/dirkcaber, or on his NSFW blog at http://dirkcaber.com.

Dirk Caber - Mount Desert Island Suite, 3rd Movement:  Beach and Sandpipers

The Eclogues were experiments in orchestration for me, each using a particular variation on a chamber orchestra of not more than 24 or 25 players. Each was also based loosely on a literary source, usually a poem. Eclogue No. 6 draws on a work by the 16th century English poet and composer Thomas Whythorne:

"As thy shadow itself apply’th
To follow thee whereso thou go,
And when thou bends, itself it wry’th,
Turning as thou both to and fro:
The flatterer doth even so,
And shopes himself the same to gloze,
With many a fawning and gay show,
Whom he would frame for his purpose."

Whythorne’s poem talks about imitation which, despite often being a wan copy, is still the sincerest form of flattery. Musically, that suggests to me an original theme that spawns a myriad of subsequent variations. Eclogue No. 6 is an attempt to set this concept in a musical form that mimics a style of dance that was common in Whythorne’s time.

—Dirk Caber

Find Dirk Caber at http://facebook.com/dirkcaber, http://twitter.com/dirkcaber, or on his NSFW blog at http://dirkcaber.com.

Dirk Caber - Eclogue No. 6

The Sonata for Flute and Piano started off as sketches for a much smaller, simpler piece I wanted to be able to play with my boyfriend at the time, who played flute. Those first notes, written in spring of 2003, are still there, now the beginning of the third movement of four. This piece has one of the longest gestations of anything I’ve written, started in 2003 and not finished until 2011. In that time it completely changed in scope and difficulty, now well over twenty minutes long and challenging to even expert flautists and pianists. The second movement in particular is one of the thorniest thickets I’ve ever asked two musicians to machete their way through. This fourth movement was meant as the foil for all the angst that precedes it. More playful and lighthearted, it ends a rather turbulent piece with a little smile.

—Dirk Caber

Find Dirk Caber at http://facebook.com/dirkcaber, http://twitter.com/dirkcaber, or on his NSFW blog at http://dirkcaber.com.

Dirk Caber - Sonata for Flute and Piano, 4th Movement

The Cuban Dances were written for Eddie Frigola, a rather awesome clarinetist I met my first couple days playing with the Lesbian & Gay Big Apple Corps in NYC. He was sexy (still is!) and smart (Harvard!) and astonishingly innocent. We had a highly memorable torrid week-long affair before he left for Madrid to resume his post-grad studies. At one point during that week we sat down to play, me at the piano and he with his clarinet, and somehow we discovered ourselves improvising a habañera. He told me about the guajira, a dance form I'd not heard of before. The seed was planted, and maybe four years later, now living in Los Angeles, he received a copy of his Danzas Cubanas.

—Dirk Caber

Find Dirk Caber at http://facebook.com/dirkcaber, http://twitter.com/dirkcaber, or on his NSFW blog at http://dirkcaber.com.

Dirk Caber - Cuban Dance No. 1, "Valszante"

Here is Dirk Caber's "Piano Miniature No. 2: Reveur," the second in a series of 24 piano miniatures, none longer than about 3 minutes. Dirk describes it as follows:

"Miniature No. 2 is built around the harmonies principally; the game was making as many harmonies as possible using as many unchanging notes, particularly the bottom note in those chords, as possible.  The tune uses a similar idea, meandering a little further away each time but generally returning to the same notes at the pauses in the phrases."

Twelve of Dirk's miniatures have already been recorded; we are hoping to eventually raise sufficient funds to record the remaining 12 and release them all as an album.

—Jesse Jackman

Find Dirk Caber at facebook.com/dirkcaber, twitter.com/dirkcaber, or on his NSFW blog at http://dirkcaber.com.


Dirk Caber - Piano Miniature No. 2: Reveur

Dirk Caber - Mount Desert Island Suite, 4th Movement: Bar Harbor Rondo

By Dirk Caber for Jesse Jackman, Christmas 2013. Lyrics by John Donne (1572-1631). For more information, visit http://jessejackman.xxx/2014/08/26/classical-caber-the-good-morrow

Dirk Caber - The Good Morrow

Mad Wednesday with Dean Arcuri and Dylan Adler, broadcast on February 22, 2017 on Joy 94.9 FM in Melbourne. Details at http://joy.org.au/madwednesdays/2017/02/22/chatting-porn-power-couple-dirk-caber-jesse-jackman.

Mad Wedesday with Dean Arcuri and Dylan Adler on Joy 94.9 FM (February 22, 2017)

Queer Radio interview with Blair Martin. Broadcast on May 24, 2017 on 4ZZZ 102.1 FM in Brisbane.

Queer Radio

4ZZZ Queer Radio Interview (Part 2 - May 24, 2017)

Welcome to my SoundCloud page. I primarily use it to post the amazing compositions of my hubby Dirk Caber. Find him at http://facebook.com/dirkcaber, http://twitter.com/dirkcaber, or on his NSFW blog at http://dirkcaber.com. I can be found on Facebook at http://facebook.com/jessejackman.

Jesse Jackman

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