Solos and Duos (1985-2002)

John Van der Slice received his A.B.degree from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.A. degree in Ethnomusicology and a M.M. in Composition from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and a D.M.A. degree in composition from the University of Illinois at Urbana. He studied composition with Armand Russell, Neil McKay and Paul Zonn. He is a specialist in the music of the 20th and 21st centuries and his own compositions include more than forty works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, and orchestra (Specters, on TROY590). He was Professor of Music Theory at the University of Miami Frost School of Music, from which he retired in 2005. Solos and Duos presents an excellent cross-section of his chamber pieces. In Solo for Piano, for example, individual pitch intervals function as subjects of a musical drama which unfolds within contrasting sections. Solo for Tuba may be thought to "suggest a lifeform struggling to assert itself in what threatens to be a losing battle." The title Embers (written for the Malletkat, an electronic, programmable MIDI controller mallet percussion instrument) suggests "remnants of thought...glowing, briefly flaring, dying...until a final reawakening."