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“Great Day” Ode, composed in 1991, is a joyful and effective piece that weaves three African-American Spirituals together: “Great Day,” “Jesus Walked this Lonesome Valley,” and “Every Time I Feel the Spirit.” Starting with an introduction in multiple key areas, it begins with a rhythmic and more upbeat spiritual. After...

Herbison’s Piano Sonata Op. 19 is a technically demanding work featuring idiomatic writing inspired by the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras. The sonata contains four movements, Prelude, Rondo, Scherzo, and Air. The Prelude and Air are written in a lean neoclassical style, while the denser and lengthier Rondo and Scherzo...

Homage is a movement in the set Piano Potpourri . Composed in 1990, it employs a wide variety of different textures and techniques, including octaves, dense chords, and chromaticism. Homage is dedicated to black composer William Dawson, and is based on the spiritual “I’ve Been Buked and I’ve Been Scorned”,...

These two piano etudes are both intellectually challenging and technically demanding. Both compositions are atonal. With a five-notes cluster in the left hand that reaches the lowest key and another five note-cluster in the right that reaches the highest key on of the piano, the intro of the first etude...

Times Seven is a 6-minute, 7-page piece composed by Zenobia Powell Perry in 1985. The title "Times Seven" may be based on a passage from Matthew 18:21-22 from the Christian New Testament, but there is no source to conclusevely prove that. This piece has many dissonant harmonies. It starts with...

“Farewell Alma Mater”, published in 1907 by A. Ross and R. G. Jackson, is a piano piece that won first prize at the Inter-State Literary Society of Kansas and the West, held at St. Joseph, Missouri, in December, 1906. The piece is written in С minor and structured in a...

Dream and Variations is a substantial work for solo piano written by D. Moore in September 1974. Twenty-one pages long, the piece is graded as advanced level. It consists of an introduction, a theme, and six variations. Unlike Moore’s “Dream Variation” from the song cycle From the Dark Tower ,...

Many Thousand Gone is a four-page piano piece written in 1986 by Undine Moore. The piece is appropriate for an advanced student. As the title page of the piece says, it’s based on the slave song: “No more auction block for me. No more, no more. No more auction block...

Before I’d Be A Slave is a four-page piano piece written by Undine Moore in 1953. It is graded as advanced level of difficulty. The piece was commissioned by Barbara Hollis for the Modern Dance Group, Virginia State College. Moore wrote on the title page: “It follows a program which...

Fugue in F major is a contrapuntal work written in three voices for piano. The piece is written in sonata allegro form as the composer clearly stated where exposition, development, and recapitulation begin. Only three pages in length, the piece is graded as appropriate for an advanced level student. It...