On May 14th, 2025, I performed four piano pieces in my friend Holden Mui’s composition recital. I consider playing Holden’s music to be the most important project of my life (so far.) For more information, refer to this essay and my blog post on our Emergent Ventures grant, or my program notes: Moon River, Serenade & Toccata, Poetry.
Part I can be found here. Part III to come.
Here is a compilation of all the music I recorded this year, along with a few bullets on why you should listen to each.
(Also, like, follow, subscribe, etc. on YouTube and Spotify if you enjoy!)
Moon River
Listen if …
You’re curious about what it would mean for Moon River to “meet Debussy” then go “full Liszt”;
You like songs and movies from the mid-1900s;
You like Audrey Hepburn’s singing;
You want to hear how one of the greatest love songs ever written might sound on the piano.
Fugue in E Major
Listen if …
You’re looking for something clean and organized;
You like the idea of a Bach-style fugue with a few twists;
You appreciate unpretentiousness;
You don’t mind that the Prelude that comes before this movement will be released sometime in the future.
Serenade and Toccata
Listen to Serenade if …
You enjoy this very simple love story;
You’re curious about how to make the piano’s higher register sound good;
You appreciate textural variety;
You want to listen to a piece that is never truly dark.
Listen to Toccata if …
You like music that is unafraid to be more abstract;
You seek constant motion;
You like other toccatas, like the ones by Ravel or Prokofiev.
And listen to it all if …
You want to find the similarities and differences between these movements.
Poetry
Listen to Prelude if …
You appreciate density, complexity;
You’re willing to embrace dissonance;
You’d like to experience an incredible buildup to an incredible climax;
You want to better understand the rest of the suite.
Listen to Lament if …
You wonder what it would be like to approach grief with restraint;
You want to be slightly unsettled by the matter-of-factness of it all.
Listen to Nocturne if …
You just want to hear something beautiful, meaning or higher cause be damned;
You love watching the sunrise.
Listen to Scherzo if …
You want to hear what a piece dedicated to me sounds like;
You’re into spontaneity, (you have a short attention span), [you have TikTok brain]. Latter two descriptors courtesy of a teacher of mine;
You’re looking for something genuinely, undeniably brilliant;
You like the idea of a happy ending.
Listen to Postlude if …
You want to better understand the rest of the suite;
You’re looking for something meditative.
And listen to it all if …
You want to understand this story;
You’re curious about why Poetry is my favorite piece written for the piano, and about why I think it might be among the greatest ever, too.
What if I want to listen to prelude from prelude and fugue
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