• Mark Adamo
  • Phone Call and Improvisation (2017)

  • G Schirmer Inc (World)
  • Piano
  • 2 min

Programme Note

Composer note:
A pastiche nestled inside a portrait, this miniature for piano imagines Leonard Bernstein interrupting an antic and digressive conversation with a friend to play through the first draft of an imagined birthday piece for his colleague Jennie Tourel, the mezzo-soprano who introduced his song cycles "I Hate Music!" and "La Bonne Cuisine." Phone Call and Improvisation is dedicated, with affection and gratitude, to Lara Downes, who commissioned the piece and introduced it at CUNY's Bernstein Marathon at Elebash Hall on December 2nd, 2017.

— Mark Adamo