Today would have been my former teacher's birthday. Today, I share a Prelude and Fugue composed in her honor, plus an elegy for those affected by the pandemic

A prelude by me, inspired by Gabriela Montero, followed by a close look at the hidden rhythms in one of Bach's most famous pieces, the Prelude in C from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1.

A prelude by me, followed by a conversation with composer Marc Chan, and his fugue on the Disney theme "My Own Home" from the Jungle Book.

Ragtime toccata #2, composed and recorded in 2019

The first Prelude from Shostakovich's set of 24 Preludes and Fugues

Last movement from a 2019 Suite in Neo-Baroque style

Studio recording of the Pastoral Etude, Op. 40, #6 by Nikolai Kapustin

It's been a rough couple of days for me, for the country, for the world. A lament in music.

From the extreme of jubilance to the extreme of melancholy and frustration, to match my dire mood after Monday's news. J.S. Bach's Prelude and Fugue in C# Minor from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, recorded live in performance from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 2019.

Music for you every day of the week. Today: One of my first ragtime compositions from 2015, performed live in 2019.

Music for you every day of the week. Today: A new song (and how-to) inspired by the world's (suddenly) most common phrase.

Music for you every day of the week. Today: J.S. Bach's Prelude and Fugue in D major from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, recorded live in performance from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 2019.

Music for you every day of the week. Today: Meditation #2: Seeking a Higher Power, recorded live in performance from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 2019.

Music for you every day of the week. Today: Chorale Toccata #1, from September 2019, composed and performed by me.

A short piece of music for you every day of the week to help keep the music alive during the pandemic. Starting today with "Skip: A Baroque-Ragtime Prelude," from February 2020.

Guest pianist Carlos Cesar Rodriguez joins me again to share his remarkable talent for and insights into improvisation, while I challenge him to make it more a part of his regular concert fare. He improvises an Ives-ian accompaniment to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" (featuring tenor Peter Joshua Burroughs) and we take turns improvising over William Bolcom's Graceful Ghost Rag.

Modern classical music has a reputation for atonality, that is, that it lacks the harmonic and melodic core that has shaped Western music for hundreds of years. In this episode we hear three of my very non-atonal piano pieces. They are rooted in a traditional harmonic and motivic system and draw on another tradition of classical music, borrowing from existing folk tunes. Can you figure out what the other two tunes are before I reveal? Listen in and see.

One of the (many, but principal) challenges of playing Chopin's music is finding room for expressiveness in intimacy. Ivan Moravec was on another level achieving this in his playing (as you'll hear!), but I take a crack at it too, and Eli Luberoff joins me for listening challenge and Post-listening (get it??) discussion. Along the way we get to know intimately Chopin's Op. 15, no. 2, along with a genuine Spotify mystery, before listening to a complete performance.

Special guest Ariel Friedman joins me to share a sublime song of hers and ruminate on genre distinctions and crossover in the classical and folk music realms. We talk about Kinhaven (see episode 20), how she got started with her sister duo band (Ari & Mia), and how they and she have influenced me as a composer and musician through the years.

I explain the careful structure behind Contrapunctus five from Bach's Art of Fugue, while looking at different ways to approach playing fugues on the piano. Finally, we hear it complete on the piano as well as the continuo organ.