some performances I’ve given:

Prelude and Fugue in G Major, BWV 541, by J.S. Bach, performed on the Brombaugh Organ in the Lawrence University Chapel

The end of this fugue is especially notable: listen for how we arrive at a tangled and painful diminished seventh chord before the fugue subject is reborn with more strength and glory than ever.

“Down by the Riverside,” from North American Ballads by Frederic Rzewski

This is from a recital I gave in which I invited audience members to sing along to hymn tunes and spirituals before I played piano pieces based on them. In this recording, you’ll hear everyone sing “Down by the Riverside” before I dive into Rzewski’s take on it.

A Silent Crossroads

At the corner of Denbigh Street and Warwick Way,

I’m waiting for the red man to turn green.

Somehow we are all stopped here-

the bus to my right,

the cars to my left,

even the rain, suspended lightly in mid-air.

And all really is well.

I am here, now, where I need to be,

with all the other mothers and dreamers and vagabonds

waiting to cross at Denbigh and Warwick,

in the twilight between afternoon and evening

in the London rain.

There is a peace in the waiting.

I thank you, God, for my whole life.

I offer you the pain and the parts I don’t understand.

I offer you the relationships that don’t fit in my hands or my heart.

I offer you my bundled self in my big jacket, feeling like the octopus child in ‘Love Actually,’ my feet sore, and my mind drenched.

I offer you the words on my mouth before and after this silent moment with the red man.

But mostly I offer you the quiet of right now,

The quiet of the blank faces of children, hands in their parents’ palms,

The calm of my feet finally sinking slower and slower into the sidewalk,

Which sinks into the earth,

Which groans, as it also sinks into the love of you, its creator.

I wanted today to be something beautiful and profound

But all that happens is a wordless veil lifted here at Denbigh and Warwick,

and I can breathe into your arms.

In the space of the red before green,

I am not anything more than just who I can be.

I sink into the storybook of today that you always open to me in these twilight eternity moments,

And once again I take your invitation to let go of the wall and feel your hand on my back in this dance called prayer.

Maybe someday the dance won’t stop and the book won’t close.

But for today here in the rain at Denbigh and Warwick, I am just happy that once again I have returned to you.

I can rest in the coming back, even if that means I felt far away before.

I don’t have to worry about the stupid fight I had with you 20 minutes ago,

Or the tears that ran down my cheeks moments before that.

For now, for this small eternity I share with the red man across the street,

I am just a child learning to walk home again.

my beauty, your presence dawns in the air,

a silk mist just over my line of sight.

too high to reach you, too light to hold you,

too soft to speak of you without damaging your effervescent form.

and yet too close to even name you.

you are within the tender beating of my heart.

~August 2016

“Are you breathing” is a vignette combining the worlds of a story by Helen Oyeyemi and a song by Tori Amos, a dialogue between a girl and a piano.