I started to compose in 1995. All of a sudden, my ability to conceive music and to think in terms of music opened up. This caught me by surprise. I had studied the fundamentals of composition earlier with Mario Feninger, as part of my training as a pianist and musician, without any particularly notable results. I could write music, laboriously. It was hard work, not particularly pleasurable.
But one day, it happened.
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For the first time, I was able to hear musical phrases forming in my head, and as I was writing them down, more phrases formed. The first works I composed were studies, which I used to improve my piano technique. But they are concert studies, pieces which are interesting enough to perform in public.
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| Above, a page from the manuscript for the etude “The Arpeggio”. Below, A page from “For the Left Hand”. | |
| My idea at the time was to help my piano carreer with my pieces, to give myself a chance to stand out among other pianists by playing my own works.Many pianists had written pieces for themselves, including Sergei Prokofieff, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Anton Rubinstein, Ferruccio Bussoni and, of course, earlier musicians who, for the most part, performed only their own music, like Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, etc. |  |
| But I also decided to try and develop a musical style of my own and to see how far I could take this new ability before bringing my music to the public. My efforts went in several directions. After the first etudes I decided to write pieces inspired by ideas I wanted to express. I created about five suites and sonatas on different subjects, adding a short poem before each piece. I wrote about the media, about emotions, about the environment, about society in general, about children. | |
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In addition, I undertook the creation of a musical form. This form I called “evolution” which is discussed in the page Works. I started to get into chamber music, vocal music, choral music, and orchestral music. After a period of 8 years of writing music, in 2003 I decided to embark on my first public project as a composer/pianist by creating a CD called Almost Songs. I learned the pieces and recorded them in 2005, releasing the CD with a concert at Zipper Hall of the Colburn School of Music in Los Angeles, California. |
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My daughter Ariela likes to draw on the back of some of my music. Here is a couple she drew for me. |