Shards: Piano Music of Jonathan Pieslak

Composer Jonathan Pieslak is on the faculty at the City College of New York and Graduate Center, where he teaches composition, theory, and music and radicalism. He is a fellowship winner from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and his compositions have been widely performed and recorded. Pieslak comments that he is no exception to the stereotype of younger American composers citing the influence of pop/rock music on their own compositions. His musical roots lie in the hard rock and metal of the late 1980s and early 1990s as well as Latin and funk. He and pianist Robert Auler have been friends and musical collaborators since graduate school days at the University of Michigan and the performances on this recording reflect their close relationship. An associate professor at SUNY Oswego, Auler has performed throughout the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, China and Austria. A first-prize winner of the Society of American Musicians competition, Auler made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2004.