As of this writing, our last official performance was September 2023. I was invited by the vice president of The Wallkill River Center for the Arts my dear friend Judi Silvano to perform a handful of original works with strings. – I chose the piano trio format for this occasion. We performed 5 pieces, all original works. 2 X Ensemble works: Cumberland Spring (2012) rearranged, the 3rd movement from “Convergence: Sereis A” (The Dream). 2 pieces from the NAIL catalog – “In The Kitchen” and “Peasant’s Muse”, and an excerpt from an as yet unfinished suite called the ‘Duet Series’. I wrote new sections for Peasant’s Muse, and reworked both “in the Kitchen” and ‘Cumberland Spring”. I was joined by violinist (and the X Ensemble’s concertmaster) Fung Chern Hwei and the great cellist Leigh Stuart. The show went extremely well and was well attended.
Cumberland Spring Video:
Towards the end of 2024 I was asked by German based composer and friend Rainer Straschiel to participate (along with 2 other ensembles) in a sweeping project titled “MAX”, dedicated to the memory of his father. We had some difficulty with scheduling, but we finally secured a studio and recorded our tracks (3) in July 2025. The musicians here were once again the wonderful Leigh Stuart (cello) and Steven Frieder (clarinet). The music had a significant amount of improvisation written in, with the direction that the ensemble should make certian key decisions concerning the approach. It provided a most interesting challenge and Rainer was very happy with the result. The record should be available Spring 2026.
Last September I successfully mounted a large format performance celebrating my 50th year as a compser and performer. I assempled a 14 piece ensemble which included members of NAIL, the X Ensemble, Mr Gone and the Mahavishnu Project. I included compositions from every stage of my career with the earliest pieces composed in 1979/80 right up to new material from 2023. The sold out concert took place at the venerable Falcon in Marlboro NY, one of the great local Hudson Valley venues. There is an online photo gallery of the event here.
At he same time I was working off a grant from Arts Mid Hudson to create and perform a new series called “Piano Transformations“, a suite of new solo piano works in which I capture the sound of the piano and transform it in real time, making extensive use of digital audio processing.
I am slowly working on new material, and will probably use some of the techniques developed in my “Piano Transformations” series from last year.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading.
Yours in Sound,
– Neil Alexander