The Pianist's Guide to Illinois

This set came from an extremely lofty goal: to compose a short piece of music for every city, town, and village in Illinois. Initially, I wanted to do this on the chance that someday a music teacher in Mason City, Farmer City, or any other Illinois town could open this book and show a student a composition about the place they lived. I had hoped they would look at this collection and feel like there was a unique piece of music just for them. However, this would result in over 500 compositions – a lifetime goal rather than an achievable one for this project. To limit the scope of this work, I spoke to friends, talked to relatives, met with coworkers and listened to them talk about their hometowns. The funny, personal stories, the history, and the interesting facts they had carried with them influenced each piece in this set. I’ve always loved performing and teaching collections of character pieces - Amy Beach’s Children’s Carnival, Robert Schumann’s Papillons or Carnaval, Helmut Lachenmann’s Ein Kinderspiel, to name a few. The Pianist Guide works for both purposes: It can be performed as a single program (with or without a narrator stating the accompanying facts) or as independent movements. The penultimate piece is Chicago because it is where I have so fortunately landed, after years of traveling. The final piece is Lincoln, Illinois – my hometown – because no matter where I end up, I will never forget where I’m from. Thank you to the Illinois Music Teachers Association and Music Teachers National Association for making this work possible and thank you to Craig Jordan for premiering the work and being such a champion of contemporary piano music.