Piano Solo
click here to watch the live performance
Stuart Saunders Smith - Wonder 11/6/2025 Conrad Prebys Concert Hall |
Wonder (world premiere)
(live performances, 11/5/2025 and 11/6/2025, upcoming album release)
Conrad Prebys Concert Hall / University of California, San Diego
music by Stuart Saunders Smith
- - -
Biographies will tell you that Stuart Saunders Smith was a prolific composer of melodically intricate and rhythmically complex music.
He explored mobile forms, text pieces, and theatrical works.
He was a man of great faith, and sometimes described his compositional practice as listening to the still, small voice within.
Stuart often called himself a jazz composer.
Stuart was my friend.
Although I commissioned music from Stuart in the past, at a certain point in our long friendship, Stuart simply started sending pieces to me in the mail, newly composed. I have the great fortune of being a dedicatee of a number of those new piano works.
In a blink, on June 3, 2024, his newest piano piece Wonder changed
from being another piece that Stuart wrote for me, and for Drew Krause,
to being the last piece I would ever receive from him.
Stuart possessed a great and voracious love for the sounds of American music in the 20th and 21st centuries.
In an evening-length work of 16 movements, Wonder shines a bright light on Stuart’s musical mind, synthesizing and bringing into conversation many faceted touchstones of American art music and jazz:
The nostalgia of Charles Ives;
and the present moment of Cecil Taylor
The thoughtful spaciousness of Morton Feldman;
and the spiky acuteness of Thelonius Monk
The complexity of Elliott Carter;
and the lyricism of John Coltrane
The storytelling of Leonard Bernstein;
and the highly personal vocalism of Ella Fitzgerald.
Stuart was my friend,
and he entrusted me with Wonder.
So, with loving care and intention,
I look forward to sharing with you
the world premiere of Wonder
by my friend, Stuart Saunders Smith.
- Kyle Adam Blair
(live performances, 11/5/2025 and 11/6/2025, upcoming album release)
Conrad Prebys Concert Hall / University of California, San Diego
music by Stuart Saunders Smith
- - -
Biographies will tell you that Stuart Saunders Smith was a prolific composer of melodically intricate and rhythmically complex music.
He explored mobile forms, text pieces, and theatrical works.
He was a man of great faith, and sometimes described his compositional practice as listening to the still, small voice within.
Stuart often called himself a jazz composer.
Stuart was my friend.
Although I commissioned music from Stuart in the past, at a certain point in our long friendship, Stuart simply started sending pieces to me in the mail, newly composed. I have the great fortune of being a dedicatee of a number of those new piano works.
In a blink, on June 3, 2024, his newest piano piece Wonder changed
from being another piece that Stuart wrote for me, and for Drew Krause,
to being the last piece I would ever receive from him.
Stuart possessed a great and voracious love for the sounds of American music in the 20th and 21st centuries.
In an evening-length work of 16 movements, Wonder shines a bright light on Stuart’s musical mind, synthesizing and bringing into conversation many faceted touchstones of American art music and jazz:
The nostalgia of Charles Ives;
and the present moment of Cecil Taylor
The thoughtful spaciousness of Morton Feldman;
and the spiky acuteness of Thelonius Monk
The complexity of Elliott Carter;
and the lyricism of John Coltrane
The storytelling of Leonard Bernstein;
and the highly personal vocalism of Ella Fitzgerald.
Stuart was my friend,
and he entrusted me with Wonder.
So, with loving care and intention,
I look forward to sharing with you
the world premiere of Wonder
by my friend, Stuart Saunders Smith.
- Kyle Adam Blair