Adam Swayne has created an acclaimed tribute to honour those who fell or endured the tragedies of 9/11. His program marks the 25th anniversary by offering reflection, catharsis, intimacy, community and hope for audiences in the 2026-27 concert season.

Throughout the recital, voices from a diverse range of American communities are heard, with three focussed on private reflections of 9/11. These include African American composer Karen Walwyn, gay New York composer David Del Tredici, and a new work by Kevin Malone: “Sudden Memorials”. This 30-minute composition captures in sound the instant and fleeting memorials that friends and relatives leave at the scene of a tragedy. The work embraces polystylism, bringing further inclusivity into the narrative, and asks the pianist to use theatrical gestures and improvisation as part of the performance. Alongside three pioneering works by Henry Cowell, a very slow piece by Scott Joplin called “Solace” completes the programme by challenging the stereotype projected onto this composer during the twentieth century.

Reflections on 9/11 (2008) Karen Walwyn

3. Anguish

6. Burial

Karen Walwyn was the first female African American pianist/ composer to receive the Steinway Artist award. Her 2-CD series for Albany Records entitled ‘Dark Fires’ includes premiere recordings of works by American composers of African descent. ‘Reflections on 9/11’ received its premiere at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and won a Global Award Gold Medal of Excellence.

Walwyn is also an expert on the music of Florence Price, having made the first recording of Price’s Piano Concerto with the New Black Music Repertory Ensemble. She is currently Professor of Piano at Berklee College of Music.

www.karenwalwyn.com

The Tides of Manaunaun (1917) Henry Cowell (1897 – 1965)

Aeolian Harp (1923)

In between the three works that respond directly to the 9/11 attacks, I wanted to programme pieces that draw upon American traditions. For me, Henry Cowell represents the traditions of innovation, experimentation and marginalisation. Alongside his work as a composer, pianist and theorist, Cowell was John Cage’s teacher. He was also imprisoned for four years in San Quentin State Prison on “morals” charges (Cowell was bisexual).

These two works draw upon piano techniques that Cowell could fairly claim to have invented. They also draw upon romantic and folk styles (Manaunaun was the Irish god of the sea).

Sudden Memorials (2021) Kevin Malone

The idea to write an eighth work about 9/11 came up during an April 2021 video call with my friend and long-time collaborator, the pianist Adam Swayne.  I hadn’t composed a piano work about 9/11, and the 20th anniversary of these tragic events was approaching.  Memorial works were tentatively scheduled for performance, but the COVID-19 pandemic’s social distancing remit made commemoration difficult.

In 2006, I took a photo in Shanksville, Pennsylvania of a makeshift wire fence near the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93. On the fence, visitors had been attaching objects of remembrance, loss, honour and thanks since the crash.  The photo captured a sudden, transient moment of hundreds of items, some carefully designed and brought to the site, while others were spontaneously offered when visitors were moved upon seeing it.

Sudden Memorials was completed on 31 May, 2021, and has a duration of 30 minutes, with an option for the pianist to improvise while looking at the photo for an additional two minutes. During concert performances, the pianist is asked to seek invisible memorial objects from within the piano, the score and the air.  These gestures coincide the start of a subsequent musical “object”, some of which sound intimate or hesitant, others being extrovert and jarring.

The work is in two parts. Part 1 ends with a rowdy, communal wall (fence) of noise.  Part 2 brings the listener to a mysterious resonance which attempts to remember exactly what was lost, and yet, somehow, end the piece, but finds it difficult.  The pianist is attempting the unobtainable.

Sudden Memorials is dedicated to Adam who gave the premiere at Wigmore Hall, London on 11 Sept 2021 at 1pm, the exact hour in Britain 20 years on the from the beginning of 9/11.  The work was released on the Coviello label in September 2021.

Kevin Malone is a composer of polystylistic, cross-genre music for electronics, solo singers and instrumentalists, choirs, orchestras and opera companies.  His work demonstrates acute awareness of social concerns and global events.  He was Professor of Social and Autoethnographic Composition at the University of Manchester until his retirement in 2024.

www.opusmalone.com

Solace (1909) Scott Joplin (1868 – 1917)

Drawing on an almost entirely different American tradition, Scott Joplin’s work is subtitled ‘A Mexican Serenade for piano’, although it is closer to other musical forms from Latin America – the Cuban habañera in particular, and also the Argentine tango, alongside hints of the African American ragtime for which Joplin is best known. However, this unusually introspective piece provides an insight into Joplin’s wider output, including his sole surviving opera ‘Treemonisha’.

Missing Towers (2004) David Del Tredici

Subtitled ‘Perpetual Canon’, this work thematises the emptiness created by the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York, the city in which the composer lives and works. The canon is in two parts (symbolising the two towers). According to Tim Rutherford-Johnson, who wrote the liner notes for 9/11:20, the work is “remarkable for its poise and humility in the face of unfathomable tragedy”.

www.daviddeltredici.com

9/11:20 is the CD of this recital, released on Coviello Contemporary in 2021. All artist royalties will be donated to the US-UK Fulbright Commission, whose mission is to advance knowledge, promote civic engagement and develop compassionate leaders through education exchange between the peoples of the US and the UK.