"Ricorrenze" (lit. "Recurrences") is a piece for solo piano, built on a simple idea: nine notes, organized in reoccurring intervals (3 fourths, one ascending and the other two descending), hence the title... The Italian word can also mean "celebrations"; when I wrote it, we had just celebrated my daughter's tenth birthday. In the middle of the piece another basic pattern appears, consisting of two overlapping fifths; I first came up with this idea when I was a kid, probably around Federica's age, improvising at the piano. I recorded it on a tape, which many years later disappeared... But the idea was stuck in my head. So here it is again, in a very different context, dedicated to Federica and to my younger self!

"Arabesque" was loosely inspired by Debussy's first piano Arabesque; while writing it, however, I was thinking more of Bach's music, how he was able to produce the illusion of polyphony by "atomizing" chords into one, endlessly winding line of melody-harmony. The tribute to Bach becomes fairly obvious toward the end of the piece.

Commissioned by the Cleveland Composers Guild for the 2024 "Creativity Concert" in Cleveland, Ohio.

Commissioned by the Cleveland Composers Guild and premiered on March 16th, 2025 at Cleveland State University's Drinko Hall by the Poiesis Quartet, to whom the piece is dedicated. A video of the performance is available on Youtube (link on the home page of this website).