of Thanks" on the occasion of Linda Reichert's retirement from many years of directing Philadelphia's distinguished "Network for New Music" ensemble. Reichert was among the first to commission Higdon (and numerous other commissions were to follow). This relationship could be seen as the beginning of Higdon's distinguished career. In "Notes of Gratitude" the piano is divided into two instruments, one sounding conventional, resonant triadic sounds, and second giving a percussive sound given by stopped notes in the middle register. The piece has an aura of festivity and also one of sadness, reflecting that this chapter has come to a close. I gave the premiere of the work last April and will not forget the lively time we spent working on the piece.

Ron Thomas is a distinguished Classical andjazz pianist, and Classical and jazz composer, teacher and improviser from the Philadelphia area. His Classical training led to training under Stockhausen, but Thomas found a new direction in his encounter with Bill Evans, Miles Davis, and the jazz tradition. These Five Pieces for Piano are attractive pieces written in the manner of late-Romantic piano miniatures as by Brahms or Liszt, with some crossing into a popular idiom. In a number of these pieces, Thomas delights in exploring the tensions between chromatic voices, leading us to ever unexpected tonal regions. The conclusions of these pieces arise from their harmonic and dramatic logic, but they typically come as surprises nonetheless.

Chiayu Hsu is a Taiwanese-American composer on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. I heard her Rhapsody-Toccata