Tchotchke, solo piano (3 minutes)

• Premiered 10 December 2010, Ted Mann Concert Hall, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN; Noriko Kawai, pianist

Written on the occasion of composer James Dillon’s 60th birthday this piece paints an exuberant, athletic portrait in tribute to a wonderful composer and friend. Tchotchke features wildly transformed traditional gestures, reminiscences of the ambitious complexities of Dillon’s early piano works, as well as audacious passages of pianistic fury. These curiosities are packaged in a short, tightly refined keepsake.