"Windy Fields", Ninth Piano Sonata (2002) While in the central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan, and having just met the person who would become my wife, sketches for this piece began to emerge that were then completed back in the USA. The piece fairly accurately describes my impressions of a fairly barren Kyrgyz landscape that I walked through it, accompanied by my wife-to-be. Despite all its ups-and-downs, the piece is a celebration of life. (Performed in St. Petersburg, FL, 12 February 2003) Visions (1988-89) for piano This piece tries to musically describe three visions with differing characteristics and textures, each movement being part meditative and part virtuosic. Due to the nature of the music, the overall composition is too free to be called a sonata. (Performed in Sarasota, FL, 13 April 1991 and Clearwater, FL, 12 August 1995) Four Quiet Piano Pieces (2001) This composition was inspired by a very difficult time in the composer’s life during which many things he had known and come to rely on came to an end. The intense emotions that this restructuring created ended up being sublimated into the quietude of four short movements of moderate speed. The titles of the movements have a nocturnal feel to them as they accurately describe each movement’s mood. (Performed in Gainesville, FL, 10 November 2001) Rituals (1979-82) for piano With this rather intense composition, a stylistic breaking away from so-called academic composing was achieved. It took six movements of very distinct styles and with various ritualistic patterns to do so. Many of these patterns are fairly obvious, but some are not, such as the one in the fifth movement, which is a strict twelve-tone piece. It should be added that the patterns were also only meant to be presented with a proverbial grain of salt. (Performed in Sarasota, FL, 13 April 1991) Third Piano Sonata (1980) This virtuosic “wild ride” over the keyboard ended up becoming a doctoral dissertation. The physical limits of the instruments are tested and so are standard compositional structures, which prevent the piece from flying off on various tangents. As much as the sonata is expressively intense, it is also just meant to be a romp for the fingers. (Performed in Cambridge, MA, 6 February 1981) ====== PETER BLAUVELT (b. 1956) was born in France and grew up in Germany, where he began his studies in composition and piano. In 1975, he came to the U.S., where he studied at Harvard University. There, he received three degrees -- including a doctorate in composition. Since 1968, he has often given recitals -- not only of his own pieces -- in the U.S., France and Germany, in public and on the radio, and has received several prizes for both composition and piano. Meanwhile, he has also been performed in other countries in Europe and North America. After leaving Boston for Florida in 1984, he co-founded the "Tampa Bay Composers' Forum" in 1989 and founded "Creative Arts and Tutoring Services" in 1990. To date, he has written over 125 compositions, mostly chamber music, and has had nearly 100 of them performed in public.