Five Inventions
for horn & piano (2005)
American Composers Alliance, 7 minutes
Five Inventions is a series of short, lively movements for horn and piano. The piece was commissioned by hornist Francis Massinon, professor of French horn at Austin Peay State University, for premiere on the university’s Dimensions New Music concert series. A composer himself, Professor Massinon studied composition with Elizabeth Vercoe during her residency at the university holding the Acuff Chair of Excellence in 2003 and following this experience requested a piece for his own instrument.
The resulting five movements are all brief and generally of a breezy, often contrapuntal nature. The fourth movement, leading without pause into the fifth movement, is for solo horn; all others include piano.
In addition to Professor Massinon’s performances in Tennessee, the piece was performed by Paul Stevens at Northwestern University in Louisiana and at the University of Kansas in Lawrence in 2008 and by hornist Jed Hacker on the 2010 New Music Festival at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio.
