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Premiere: Italian pianist
Giovanni Mancuso premiered this piece at a concert of the new music ensemble
Laboratorio Novamusica in collaboration with the
Romanian Culture Institute and the Youth Assessorship of Venice. The concert
took place at La Fenice Opera house, in Venice,
Italy. A notable performance took place on February 28th, 1998 at Killian
Hall of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Noam Elkies,
a fantastic pianist and celebrated Mathematician genius who is the youngest
person to receive tenured professorship at Harvard University.
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Program Notes by José Elizondo:
Frog
Leaps was written in an
improvisational outburst in response to a radio broadcast of “chance-music”
composed by John Cage. At first, it creates the image of an energetic
amphibian leaping back and forth joyously on the piano keyboard. However,
recognizable rhythmic and melodic patterns soon emerge from this
improvisational work, ironically validating the value of artificially
constructed methods used to introduce “randomness” to music. Originally
intended as a joke, Frog Leaps was submitted to a competition where it caught
the attention of a pianist that decided to premiere it.
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