Four Pieces for Guitar (1984-1999)
for guitar solo

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1. Entrance
2. One
3. Fisherman’s Village
4. Celebration​

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COMPOSER'S NOTE
In 2020, the world was in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Life seemed to be at a complete standstill outside of our rural home in Virginia, and life inside of me turned to music intensely. I was eager to feel purposeful and productive. Recording my solo guitar music was something that I had wanted to do for many years, and it could be done with just a few people. I called Chip Newton, a classical guitarist with whom I performed in a guitar quartet in the early 2000s, when I was serving as Artist in Residence at Southwest Virginia Community College, in Richlands, Virginia. Chip is a masterful player, and he was excited to prepare and record the music as the featured performer on this project. I picked my four best pieces to record. We started an email and telephone dialogue about the music, editing the music while we both had guitars in hand — often on FaceTime, so that we had visual contact as well.

Chip made arrangements to record at Elon College, where he was teaching. A photo from that recording session shows Chip wearing a mask — a sign of the times. Carey Harwood was the sound engineer, and when the sound files were edited, he emailed them with the subject line 'Four Pieces for Guitar'. The name stuck.

The Movements

I. Entrance (1987): Written as a processional for a cousin’s wedding.

II. One (1995): Commissioned for a friend’s first wedding anniversary.
 

III. Fisherman’s Village (1984): A tone poem inspired by an early, foggy morning in a fishing village on the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland

IV. Celebration (1999): Composed for my sister Alicia's wedding and inspired by the driving dance rhythms in the lute music of the English Renaissance composer John Dowland.