Beguine Again

In January, 2005 at Stetson University, the TARAB Cello Ensemble performed a new music concert that was suberb and exhilarating. To the audience's dismay, the ensemble had no encore prepared (do any even exist?). I later found out that the group was comprised of recent Eastman School of Music graduates, many of whom I had conducted during the end of my academic tenure in Rochester. I was struck by the ensemble's determination to remain together to make music and, with their blessings, set out to rectify this omission in their repertoire. BEGUINE AGAIN is a Latin-American "echo" consisting of three choruses (the third becomes a little mixed up—as if the dancers momentarily partways...) plus a Coda, and is roughtly four minutes in duration. The piece was stolen— and extended— from an excerpt of my 12-year-old PARLOR PIECES (1993): the score was completed in May of 2005 in Ormond-by-the-Sea, Florida.