Pieces From A Distant Land
Peter Dickson Lopez composer
Anna Kislitsyna piano
Peter Dickson Lopez returns to Navona Records with his first solo release; PIECES FROM A DISTANT LAND, a touching solo piano memoriam to his late mother, who had once requested piano pieces for herself to play at church. A touching and emotionally prolific piece given a loving performance by Anna Kislitsyna, Lopez — an ever-experimental composer — channels the “Distant Land” of tonal music familiar to his childhood self and compositional roots, while still honoring the special and often haunting sound so intimate to his musical oeuvre. Those with an ear for the sonically experimental will instantly recognize Lopez’s salient touches while being treated to an especially graceful and compassionate tribute to the happy, hazy days of childhood, and the warm music that so often accompanies them.
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Track Listing & Credits
| # | Title | Composer | Performer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Pieces From A Distant Land, Series I, No. 1 | Peter Dickson Lopez | Anna Kislitsyna, piano | 4:53 |
Recorded May 31, 2023 at Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport MA
Session Producer & Engineer Brad Michel
Assistant Engineer Lucas Paquette
Editing, Mixing & Mastering Lucas Paquette
Executive Producer Bob Lord
A&R Director Brandon MacNeil
A&R Chris Robinson
VP of Production Jan Košulič
Audio Director Lucas Paquette
Production Manager Martina Watzková
Production Assistant Adam Lysák
VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Edward A. Fleming
Publicity Aidan Curran
Artist Information
Peter Dickson Lopez
As an internationally performed composer, Peter Dickson Lopez traces his musical roots to a broad range of influences from his tenure as a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley, as a Tanglewood (USA) Fellowship Composer, and as recipient of the George Ladd Prix de Paris (1976-78). The eclectic nature of Lopez’s mature style stems no doubt from having worked directly with composers of diverse approaches and philosophies during his early years at Berkeley and Tanglewood: with Joaquin Nin Culmell, Andrew Imbrie, Edwin Dugger, Olly Wilson, Earle Brown at UC Berkeley (1972-1978); and with Ralph Shapey and Theodore Antoniou during his Fellowship at Tanglewood (1979). Even more influential to Lopez’s artistic development was his residence in Paris where he had the opportunity to listen to many live concerts of contemporary European composers as well as to attend numerous events at IRCAM.
Anna Kislitsyna
Pianist and harpsichordist Anna Kislitsyna made her solo debut at age 10 with the Omsk Symphony Orchestra. She remains in high demand as a soloist, collaborative pianist, and educator. Recent season highlights include five new album productions with PARMA Recordings and two release concerts in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, performing Haydn and Shostakovich Piano Concertos with Helena Symphony and Southeastern Pennsylvania Symphony Orchestra, and returning to the Omsk Philharmonic as a soloist to give the inaugural performance on the new harpsichord.
Notes
Quite some years ago, my mother, Mary Lois, asked me to write some easy-to-play pieces in the tonal tradition that would be suitable for her to play during her church services. This is the first piece I wrote for her and one which she liked very much. Apparently, I didn’t quite get the “easy-to-play” part of her request, as she never was able to “play” these pieces as intended. Nonetheless, she treasured the pieces I wrote for her while she was still alive. She passed away in 2015, but I am still writing these pieces, indeed as much for myself as for her. Thus, I subtitled the first from the initial group of pieces In Memoriam in loving memory of my mother and all that she did for me by encouraging me to continue writing music.
I later revised the piece in 2022, and it is the 2022 revised version that was recorded by Anna Kislitsyna in 2023 at the Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport MA by PARMA Recordings. I later revised the piece in 2022, and it is the 2022 revised version that was recorded by Anna Kislitsyna in 2023 at the Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport MA by PARMA Recordings, scheduled for release in January, 2024. Jennifer Wang performed the world premiere of this piece at Carnegie Weill Recital Hall in New York City at the Carnegie Laureate Gala Concert, organized and produced by Progressive Musicians and Sound Espressivo.
The title of the collection, PIECES FROM A DISTANT LAND, originates from my Paris sojourn from 1976-1978. Irene, my wife, who accompanied me, was my constant companion and shared with me the adventure of living abroad in Europe. During this time, I thought of home, back in the San Francisco Bay Area, as the “Distant Land”. Beyond this, it also occurred to me that “Distant Land” was a metaphor for the tonal language I grew up with and in which I began composing. This was particularly salient for me at the time as I was writing The Ship of Death which moved quite beyond this early language I was so used to, combining in fact such diverse sources as live electronic processing of acoustic sounds, open form of Earle Brown, complex contrapuntal textures, metric modulation influenced by the likes of Elliot Carter, and of course the sonic and timbral richness of much of the music I was listening to in Paris at the time — Xenakis, Messiaen, Cristóbal Halŏer, Heinz Holliger, and Stockhausen to name just a few!
Based on this view of a “Distant Land” I began to contemplate several series of works for solo piano, the first being written in the tonal tradition (Series I), the second being tonally more advanced (Series II), and the third being experimental (Series III).
— Peter Dickson Lopez
