On February 12, 2012, Prescott POPS Symphony is to premiere "1912," my 15 minute orchestral work celebrating the Arizona centennial that they commissioned for the concert.

The work is in four movements, inspired by poetry of Martha Kirby Capo.

You can preview the score and audio files at www.nathana.com/1912. At that site, you'll also find the poems that Martha Kirby Capo wrote and program notes about the piece.

I will be conducing the piece. It has been an honor to rehearse the POPS symphony on this work and I look forward to its performance!

The San Tan Orchestra will also be playing "1912" on February 25 and 26.

At the aforementioned Suzuki Academy, in one of my repertoire classes I accompanied the students with my new Martin Guitar. I invited parents to bring guitars if they had one (one did) and I passed out guitar chords for them to play along.

I uploaded the Guitar Chords that I typed up to here. Feel free to download them, use them, and offer any feedback you might have.

Wow! What a week with the Academy!

Violinist Laura Tagawa and I are co-Directors of the Chaparral MusicFest Suzuki Academy. This year we are a Suzuki Association of the Americas sanctioned institute. Violinist Sarah deLaveaga, Suzuki violin teacher Barbara McClymonds, and percussionist Maria Flurry all chipped in for the extra-curricular classes and activities with the students.

The faculty recital with Laura, Sarah, Maria and myself was phenomenal on Wednesday evening. We played works by McLean, Saint-Saëns, Teleman, Mozart, Bartok, Bach, Faure, and (of course) Flurry.

The week with the students was intense, as usual, but we covered a lot. I love teaching the master classes with the students. It is rare as a teacher to be able to focus on only one piece for multiple lessons a row.

The final student recital on Saturday was inspiring. The pianist soloists all played with heart and confidence. The violinists played the group repertoire and fiddle tunes taught by Barbara. And one of the highlights, I thought, was when the pianists and violinists had the opportunity to play various duets together from my (still unpublished) 5-minute Duet series. These are short duets written for Suzuki violin and piano students that are designed to be taught in as a little as 5 minutes.

Some late nights for the co-Directors as we worked each evening for the next day, but I expect that each year's Institute will be easier and better than before. Feedback forms were universally quite positive, even from those who had attended the large Suzuki Institutes across the country.

Thanks, Laura, Sarah, Barbara, & Maria!

I completed a one week residency on the Navajo Reservation last week with the music students of Many Farms High School. They have a fantastic piano lab up there with an enthusiastic teacher, Carol Ridley.

With the piano students, we worked on the basics of composing a melody, question and answer phrases, AABA form, using motifs, and writing harmonies for our melodies.

With the 13 member choir, we took the poetry of one of the students and set it to music. Here's the poem:

Last Day
by Jovonna Sandoval

The sweet scent of oaks and pines
in the morning after
A rainy night.  The air is fresh,
the sun is barely peeking
over the mountains.  She feels
the damp soil underneath
her moccasins as she runs.

She feel free, breathing
and filling her lungs with
cool, crisp, fresh air.
She runs back into the
hogan and catches her breath.

This is her last day as a
child.  Now begins the rest
of her life as a mature
woman.  Some think it's the
best feeling in the world,
to accept more responsibility
and challenges, and more freedom.


I really enjoyed my time with the students. They were very kind and engaged during the whole residency. I hope to visit there again next year!

I had the opportunity to play on a recital last night with several other fine pianists from the area on a Prescott Fine Arts Association concert honoring the 200th birthdays of Schumann & Chopin.

I played my set of "cat pieces" entitled Three Pieces for Jasmine, and I premiered a set of short works entitled Three After Schumann's Album for the Young -- short works geared for students and inspired by three works in the Suzuki Piano repertoire: Happy Farmer, Melody, and The Wild Rider. Each of my works started with a concept from one of Schumann's pieces, and I used that concept as a basis for the short character piece I wrote.

Each of the pianists brought something magical to the concert. In particular, Christina Cuda-Robertson brought great joy to the piano, and Michael Mahany had us all laughing with his musical humor. And then the highlight of the evening (for me) was a performance by Steinway artist James Nalley of Liszt's Ballad #2 in B Minor. The performance was so stunning that it brought tears to my eyes.