Texas new music-ensemble revised

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Texas New Music Ensemble
On Saturday, November 07, 2015 at 7:30 pm, the Texas New Music Ensemble presented their autumn 2015 concert at Fort Bend Music Studio. The program dubbed ‘Autumn Piano Concert’ featured five solo piano pieces performed by Makiko Hirata. They included: The Birth of Shiva (1999) by Dan Welcher; American Sketches (2000) Movements I-VI by Jefferson Todd Frazier; Phantasy and Toccata (1985) by David Ashley White; Patterns Preludes, Book I (2005) Movement I-VI by Karim Al-Zand, and Circles (2012) by Chad Robinson. There was an intermission after the third piece where refreshments were served before the concert proceeded. The whole concert was a success; however, the three compositions that impressed me were Patterns Preludes, Circles and The Birth of Shiva, in that order.
The pianist of the event was Makiko Hirata. She studied music at Manhattan School of Music and New York University. She has featured as a soloist with various orchestras such as the Pecs Hungarian Symphony. She is also a songwriter and a music lecturer.
The Birth of Shiva was the first performance of the evening. It is part of a piano concerto titled ‘Shiva’s Drum’, composed by Dan Welcher. One might describe it as a portion of a larger work that the pianist can carry to different audiences of the Shiva, an Indian deity, without having to a whole orchestra. However, his piano has to bring clearly out the texture of the orchestr…