Avery-aries (in-progress)

Avery-aries is a suite of short solo piano works written with the pianist James Avery in mind.  Work began on the pieces while James was teaching in Buffalo, with the hope that he would be able perform them.  He passed away before the pieces were finished and then many of the ideas were left unattended.  Recently ideas for the work have resurfaced and are in progress to be finished.

Initial approaches to the pieces were based on creating probability tables.  The tables were devised through several approaches that investigated the layout of the piano keyboard, graphical references, incorporation of James’s musical name, and most recently, cataloged data from piano pieces by one of James’s favorite composers, Stefan Wolpe.

While James was only in Buffalo for a short period of time, his influence was significant.  These pieces stand as a small tribute to his impact personally.