As I was writing anatomies of fragile things, I was thinking a lot about the complex and colorful patterns on the wings of butterflies, and in the sound world of this piece I wanted to capture their intricacy and fragility. The work opens with a swirl of gently descending runs in the piano and violin, which are interrupted by a plaintive oboe melody. Distant, celestial chords emerge in the top octave of the piano, as the violin and oboe interject with tremolos and fragments of melodies. In the middle section, the falling lines from the beginning are distorted: where before they were fragile constellations of sound, now they’re now jagged and syncopated. The final section returns to the music from the beginning, and the work closes with a long, sustained harmony fading to nothing.

Premiered November 2018 by Julia Simpson, oboe, Angela Bae, violin, and Wesley Ducote, piano at Shepherd School of Music Fall Composer's Forum

anatomies of fragile things (2018) for oboe, violin, and piano

Nationalité : le Monde.
Dionysiaque jusqu'à la moelle. 
Mes os sont des flûtes, mes muscles dansent 
pendant que mes consones percutent et 
mes voyelles ondulent, pour le reste 
écoutez surtout mon silence.

Nationality: the World.
Dionysian to the marrow.
My bones are flutes, my muscles dance
while my consones collide and
my vowels undulate, for the rest
above all listen to my silence.

Nacionalidad: el mundo.
Dionisíaco hasta la médula.
Mis huesos son flautas, mis músculos danzan 
mientras mis consonantes percutan y
mis vocales ondulan, pero 
sobre todo te invito a escuchar mi silencio.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Zach Hicks is a composer and flutist based in Boston. His music has been performed and recorded by the Cassatt String Quartet, the Manhattan Symphonie, and the NEC Philharmonia under the direction of Maestro David Loebel. Zach has been commissioned by members of the Vermont Symphony and Jefferson Symphony, and the piano studios of Victor Rosenbaum and Jihye Chang, among others. His piece Lost in Translation for solo baritone saxophone will be premiered by saxophonist Claire Salli at the North American Saxophone Alliance 2020 Biennial Conference in March.

As a flutist, Zach has performed around the world with the NY Youth Symphony, the Union City Philharmonic, the Brooklyn Metro Chamber Orchestra, and Utopia Opera. He is the youngest winner of NYU Steinhardt’s Woodwind Concerto Competition, and has participated as a finalist in competitions across the United States, such as the San Diego Flute Guild’s Young Artist Competition and the Jefferson Symphony’s Young Artist Competition.

Zach is currently pursuing a Masters of Music Composition at the New England Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of Stratis Minakakis. He completed his undergraduate studies in flute performance with Soo-Kyung Park at NYU Steinhardt as a Gale and Ira Drukier Music scholar. His other principal teachers include Kati Agócs and Justin Dello Joio for composition, Lyle Davidson for harmony, and Frances Brodeur for flute.

My warmest thanks to everyone stopping by for listening to my tracks, the most of the representing a  'REVIEW   OF THE PAST TIME PIANISTS' INTERPRETATIONS ON THE HISTORICAL PIANO ROLLS, and in addition to them, also to a minor but growing  LISTS of MY MY OWN RENDITIONS, all of the latter representing a variety of piano music, & some pipe-organ classics, - and  TO THE Growing LISTS OF (just lately done and reproduced)  TRANSCRIPTIONS OF VARIOUS CHAMBER MUSIC CLASSICAL PEARLS FOR TWO PIANOS.
A HEADSET IS RECOMMENDED for optimal sound experience!
This kind of 'touching' on these old pre-sound-rec. era works by the great performers of the past, and giving my sound to these old 'punch rolls',  makes me feel  deep humbleness, .and I wish that this modest attempt to bring these  performances alive will satisfy you listening to them!
To introduce myself...
I am a Finnish M.D., PhD. and Hand Surgeon (now retired), previously when young with 10 years of professionally orientated piano studies at Turku Conservatory in 1965-1975, partly  along with medical University studies. 
The digital sound techniques have become very familiar to me already from 1980's along with my university research work  
and my musical activities.
As continuation to my musical and professional experience, I have, during the last few years of my retirement, adopted a music historical challenge
to bring the past time major and minor pianists, prior to sound-recording era, onto the same 'start line' with the present pianists, by making their presentations, played onto 'punch rolls' i.e. piano rolls, audible with modern digital techniques. This wouldn't be possible without the pioneering  efforts of Richard Stibbons, Wayne Stahnke, Terry Smythe, Warren Trachtman, Spencer Chase, and others, who developed the optical digitizing techniques of the piano rolls, and digitized them.

The main part of my recordings here in SC consists of selection recorded by me from optically digitized piano-rolls** (from 1910's on or earlier, classical and 'vintage era'). These recordings of mine are not and will not be commercially unavailable. - The rolls were first optically scanned and converted into a digital form by diverse operators** (see also to the info of each piece). The pieces here were partly (minor part) picked from various open net sources, publicly available, but mainly from the huge archive (n=ca.5000) of digitized copies copies of the original reproducing piano rolls, made available to me by one of the pioneers of roll digitizing tehchniques (willing to keep anonymous), and then recorded from this archive mainly with virtual grand piano (called by me 'Bluethner Model One') modified/re-designed by me, as well as the rec settings. 
Also a minor selection of my own renditions among my records can be found here, included on my playlist 'Bach Goes Virtual', the name of the list telling something about the techniques used for getting the end result... The list includes various organ works by J.S.Bach and others, and also a few piano renditions of mine. Then there are included also various pieces which have been in my repertoire, but here played mainly by the  'guest' great players of the past (before the sound recording era).
MY MOST HUMBLE THANKS TO THE NOBLE DONOR  OF THIS INVALUABLE PIANO ROLL MATERIAL FOR MY USE!!!
My Sincere Thanks also to The Player Piano Group, UK, for providing me their permission to use the information about the piano rolls collected and provided on their web page ( https://rolls.playerpianogroup.org.uk ),  and for simplifying my short historical presentations of these renditions on their re-publication here!
AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST, MY MOST HUMBLE THANKS TO EVERYONE  OF YOU FOR LISTENING, AND FOR YOUR 'LIKES' & COMMENTS !
YOUR LISTENING & FEEDBACK IS TRULY APPRECIATED..!!.
Use of good headphones or speakers will make your music experience more enjoyable!
Best wishes, all the best
Veikko
These recordings are not commercially available, and ANY KIND OF THEIR COMMERCIAL USE IS PROHIBITED.

anatomies of fragile things (2018) for oboe, violin, and piano

Paul Novak