Hallelujah Junction

Living life in a brilliant, energetic, resonant way.  How could one not be affected by the intoxicating spirit of the journey to Hallelujah Junction?  This thrilling and audacious piece for two pianos, named after a 24 hr. truck stop on US 395 and CA 70 (close to the California-Nevada border, 96105), is my current life in the fast lane.  Strap on the seat belt, take a deep breath, and start the engine.  West coast journeys are long; we will have to drive fast, then very fast, over bumpy roads, past rolling hills, and hit breakneck speeds before eventually arriving at my final destination --- preferably accident-free.  The journey is tough and dangerous, but worth every second.  At Hallelujah Junction, I'm relieved, exhausted, but most importantly, thrilled from head to toe.

The downside to performing two-piano repertoire is that it is a COMPLICATED ordeal.  The 9-ft concert grand is an animal, a powerful living & breathing creature capable of sweet love as well as bitter betrayal.  Two concert grands on stage?  Complications:  1. The timbres of the instruments don't match, they clash.  2. The acoustics of the hall does not support two powerfully resonating instruments with clarity and focus.  3. If the performers use music, it is practically impossible to see & cue each other properly.  4.  The pianos are not of equal quality (typically the hall has one "concert" grand and one "house" grand), thus matching tuning jobs become an impossibility.  The list of technical complications continues, but by far the biggest obstacle is what happens when you have two strong-willed and bossy pianists each armed with a concert grand on stage...  

...or just perform a work that the pianists choose when to play at what time, a so-called "Choose Your Own Adventure" composition, to avoid arguments and disagreements...

The score to Archipel is visually so stunning that my major performance concern is translating this visual masterpiece into aural beauty.  Over 40 fragments recall shifting colors of the ocean, evoke haunting sounds of silence and transport mother earth back to its original primal state.