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I wanted to do a project for my grandchildren. After much thought, I decided performing Poulenc’s The Story of Babar would do nicely. I’d always admired Poulenc’s Babar music, and think it contains some of his best material. My only disappointment with Babar was that Poulenc used an abridged version of the story. I always wondered what other great music we missed out on because Poulenc didn’t do the whole thing.

Then I had a crazy thought. “I’m a composer. Why don’t I just fill in the bits Poulenc didn’t do? That will make the gift of the Babar story that much more personal and special !”

If I hadn’t been thinking about who is was for, I’d have thought about it too much and would never have had the courage to put my music side by side with Poulenc’s. Fortunately, I just naively pressed ahead and intimidation never set in.

I didn’t try to imitate Poulenc in any way. I just wrote as I naturally would. The result holds up just fine, I think. And Poulenc’s music and mine go together surprisingly well. (Considering how much I love his music, and what an influence he’s been, maybe not so surprising?)

The resulting music is about 50% Poulenc and 50% me. If you’re not already familiar with the Poulenc, and are curious who wrote what, here’s a breakdown showing the composer for each scene:

Poulenc
Babar is born                                  00:25
digging in the sand                            02:08
riding on his mother’s back                    02:47
Babar’s mother is shot                         03:50
Babar runs away                                04:10
Cording
the city and two gentlemen                     04:53
Poulenc
the Old Lady gives Babar her purse             06:18
riding the elevator                            08:00
the Floor Manager                              08:50
buying clothes                                 10:01
having a picture taken                         10:40
dining with the Old Lady                       12:02
going to sleep                                 12:46
Poulenc
exercise and bath                              13:35
riding in the car                              14:42
Cording
lessons                                        15:03
stories of life in the forest                  16:31
Poulenc
Babar remembers his mother                     17:22
buying Arthur and Celeste clothes              18:28
the pastry shop                                19:09
Arthur and Celeste’s mothers are worried       19:55
the old stork returns with news                20:27
mothers scold Arthur and Celeste               20:45
Cording
packing the trunk                              21:09
saying goodbye                                 21:54
Poulenc
leaving for the forest in the car              23:01
the Old Lady misses Babar                      23:39
the King of the elephants eats a bad mushroom  25:09
Cording
the three oldest elephants have a meeting      26:21
Babar arrives at the forest                    27:35
Cornelius speaks                               28:22
Poulenc
Babar accepted as King                         30:05
birds invite animals to wedding                31:01
guests arrive                                  31:33
the marriage and coronation of Babar           32:24
dancing                                        33:50
after the party                                34:33
Cording
leaving in a balloon for the honeymoon         36:10
Poulenc
the end                                        37:48

The bold items are my favorite Poulenc sections.

The entire story is about 38 minutes, so settle in before giving a listen.

Listen to: The Story of Babar..

So if you missed the CF2 Preludes and Serenades concert on Friday night, Oct. 1st, I’m terribly sorry! What a great program of piano music it was! I’m always proud to be associated with such fine composers, but never more so than after such a wonderful program! Orlando is so lucky to have these people locally!

Everything was great, but a particular shout-out to Erik Branch, Troy Gifford and Charlie Griffin! What fabulous works!

Dr. Rose Grace gave a slightly different interpretation of my Serenade than my own (which you can find posted here earlier). Honestly, I wish that happened more often. She even found a way to re-finger part of it to avoid crossing hands. It is such a luxury to hear one of my own piano works without having to perform it myself!

Big thank you to Dr. Grace and, as always, Benoit Glazer and Timucua! And congratulations to all the composers on the program!

So if you missed the 8th Annual CF2 Salon Concert on Aug 29th, no worries. Here’s a video of the premier of Seven Wonders, a set of songs about the 7 wonders of the ancient world, with text by Al Rocheleau. Bri Anna Davis is the mezzo-soprano and I’m at the piano. Special thanks to Al and Bri Anna! And, as always, thanks to Benoit Glazer for the recording!

Here’s a recording of Gigue performed by the wonderful Fernwood String Quartet. After many delays due to Covid, the premier performance finally took place Jan 23rd, 2021 at the Dr Phillips Center (with proper precautions and social distancing of course). Big thank you to the members of Fernwood: Julia Gessinger – violin 1, Andreas Volmer – violin 2, Daniel Cortes – viola, and Hanrich Claassen – cello.

The epigraph to the work is a quote from the Irish poet William Allingham (1824 – 1889) – “She danced a jig, she sung a song that took my heart away.”

Listen to: Gigue.

During the covid lockdown one of my piano pieces, Serenade, was published in the Timucua Arts’ Piano Anthology. Benoit Glazer did some recordings of some of the pieces in July of 2020 to help promote the book. Originally, I thought I only had an audio recording of mine, but I recently realized that I had this video copy. So here it is. Special thanks to Benoit for recording and providing this.