The Night Ahead and No Real Fate (for piano 4-hands) (2020)

"The Night Ahead and No Real Fate” is a phrase by the writer and painter Sam Pink, from his book The Ice Cream Man and Other Stories.  I got to know Sam in 2018 when I wrote to him about buying some of his art; a month later we met in a Chicago bar, me with an envelope full of cash and Sam with a pile of paintings, both of us praying the other wasn’t a serial killer. This composition The Night Ahead and No Real Fate was inspired by Sam's writings, his paintings, and our hilarious and memorable night on the town. This piece is shaped like a series of concentric circles; patterns unfurl outward from the middle register again and again until the player has struck every key, only then resting on the extreme edges of the instrument.