Notes
Trio One, Purcell's Prime Inspired by the Purcell Viol Fantasies and The Kodaly Serenade for Two Violins and Viola. During a lovely trip to Hawai'i I found myself limited to the few CD's I had brought along. As a result I had been listening to a recording of the Purcell Fantasies for days (not a bad thing) and was searching for some variation on public radio when a performance of the Kodaly Serenade came on. The closeness of the timbre and range of violins and viola in the Kodaly resonated with the colors and timbers in the Purcell Viol Fantasies and Trio One began to germinate. The next year "Trio One" was premiered on the San Francisco Symphony Chamber Music series. SAHO'S IOTA This piece was written for my son, Sean Alexander Hirai Oliver upon his birth in 2001 by my father, composer Harold Oliver. It is a work for solo violin. The influence of my father and his music while growing up was huge. As a family we attended contemporary music concerts on a regular basis in all the various locations we lived. I was exposed to equal parts contemporary classical music and regular classical music and internalized the fundamentals by performing works of my father and his colleagues. This exposure has been critical in my musical molding and the fashioning of my aural palettes. Sunlun Sonata This piece was inspired by the enlightening writings of a Buddhist monk from Burma named Sunlun. It is a work in 3 movements with the outer movement's consisting of larger romantic washes with "heroic" themes woven in. The middle movement a playful conversation between piano and violin with exchanged monologues interrupted by exclamations from the other and then the instruments joining together in an innocent child song. Travels Trio This work, my third piano trio was commissioned by Ebb and Flow arts in Hawai'i to whom I am most grateful. We premiered this work in the summer of 2009 at the Doris Duke Theater, Honolulu. This is a live recording. The trio is in two movements with an introduction to the first movement, "Awakenings" and a short coda following the second movement "Kazan Bells". The first movement is concerned with the awakening of consciousness through meditation. Thematic ideas pass between instruments representing the struggle to still one's mind of thoughts and maintain a steady concentration in meditation. The movement unfolds as the mind progresses. Thus "travel" of the mind. The second movement, Kazan Bells was written largely while in Kazan, Russia where I was performing at composer Rashid Kalimoullin's "EuropeAsia" contemporary music festival. In this movement I try to capture the wonderful colors of the 15th century architecture. Kazan's church and mosque bells ringing throughout the city and the cultural and ethnic diversity that flavors the land. In this live performance recorded in Maui, Hawaii 2009, we were performing in a wonderful stone church that the wind whistled through. A small section of Kazan Bells is improvised in keeping with the idea of merging minds consciousness in present tense with music. The wind playing in the rocks created a wonderful palate to improvise with. Tilden Park Philip Santos originally commissioned this piece for his trio, which consists of the rather unusual combination of violin, trombone, and piano. I used elements of glissandi and a broad brass like themes to compliment the ensemble. I then rewrote this work for my former piano trio, Tilden Trio. This was written while I was living in Berkeley hills on the edge of Tilden Park. We had a huge vista view of the park from our home and I could hear the sounds of children's playing wafting up in the summer air from Lake Anza. The expanse of the valley with the large chords hanging in the piano and the joyful child noises with the playful second theme.
