Morning to Midnight showcases the best of my piano music composed over the past two decades and includes my "Morning To Midnight Suite", six selections from my "San Francisco Souvenirs," five seasonal pieces, and some other works comprising twenty-five tracks and over an hour of music. The Morning to Midnight Suite strives to capture the changing

Morning to Midnight showcases the best of my piano music composed over the past two decades and includes my "Morning To Midnight Suite", six selections from my "San Francisco Souvenirs," five seasonal pieces, and some other works comprising twenty-five tracks and over an hour of music. The Morning to Midnight Suite strives to capture the changing character of the day in five contrasting movements. It is also intended to convey a life cycle theme, that is reflected in the organization of the whole album, with the more youthful-sounding, extroverted works generally placed earlier on, and the quiet, reflective works placed at the end of the CD. Passion is an extended, post-romantic work with virtuosic piano requirements. The San Francisco Souvenirs were composed in the 1980s, and celebrate some local features of my neighborhood that make San Francisco special for me. These reflect my jazz and pop music studies at the time. The Five Seasonal Pieces, also echo the album's life cycle theme and introduce impressionistic harmonies in the Winter and Spring selections. The seven Other Works that conclude the album feature several from my Lyric Suite, some memorial pieces for friends and cats, a Romance that is my most popular teaching piece, and a cheerful Prairie Homecoming inspired by TV and Western movie themes. Stylistically, the compositions are very expressive, varied and visual with each piece conveying a different mood according to the person, time, or place that inspired it. When asked to characterize my crossover classical/popular approach to writing, I answer, "If Chopin took lessons with George Gershwin and Billy Joel, he'd probably sound like me."

San Francisco Souvenirs represents the largest single musical project of my lifetime, spanning over forty years and over forty piano pieces celebrating the places, people and even cats of the City. Most were composed in the 1980s and 1990s, but a few were finished afterwards and sketches remain for others that I hope eventually to complete.

The

San Francisco Souvenirs represents the largest single musical project of my lifetime, spanning over forty years and over forty piano pieces celebrating the places, people and even cats of the City. Most were composed in the 1980s and 1990s, but a few were finished afterwards and sketches remain for others that I hope eventually to complete.

The project began modestly enough with a simple idea to celebrate some of the notable sights of the Sunset District where I lived, in a city best known for its cable cars, Golden Gate Bridge and Fisherman’s Wharf. Consequently among the first pieces composed were The Taraval Street Rag, McCoppin Square and Sunset Streetlights. These were featured on my first CD, Morning to Midnight. But ideas for more San Francisco pieces came to me with an expanded view encompassing the whole City, and the project took off. Later, this second CD was produced to present the bulk of the new compositions. Still others can be found individually on my website and on YouTube. Styles used vary from Classical, to Jazz to Pop, and I believe this collection probably represents the largest musical celebration of San Francisco ever composed. Special thanks to Scott Pratt, the pianist on these two CDs who so masterfully brought my vision for these pieces to life.