Hyde Park Boulevard (2020)
20 minutes
Suite for solo piano
Premiere: September 2022 - Linehan Concert Hall, Baltimore, MD
PROGRAM NOTE
I composed the suite Hyde Park Boulevard during the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring and summer of 2020. During these months, I hardly left the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, where I took many long walks. This suite memorializes some of the neighborhood’s characteristic sights and sounds: the bustle of Lakeshore Drive, a main artery through Chicago, full of horns and sirens; the contemplative quiet of the lagoon at Jackson Park; small creatures at play in Bobolink Meadow, also in Jackson Park; and the same park’s Wooded Isle, which contains an exquisite Japanese Garden. The piece concludes with the swirling dynamism of Lake Michigan at Promontory Point, a favorite site for gatherings. The temporal setting of the piece is from noon to noon, with a set of nocturnal movements enclosed by brighter, more extroverted music.
In the early weeks of the pandemic, I frequently played Bach’s six Keyboard Partitas, and the structure of this suite reflects the contours and tonality of the first Partita. Hyde Park Boulevard is dedicated to my husband, André J. Washington.
MEDIA
RECORDING
Daniel Pesca, piano