Solo Works
Pianagerie (2016) for solo piano
Duration: 12.5 minutes
I composed Pianagerie for Daniel Anastasio’s DMA piano recital at State University of New York at Stonybrook. The title is an amalgam of the words “piano” and “menagerie.”
Pianagerie features seven vignettes that each explore different sound qualities the piano possesses. Often the piano sounds more like other instruments rather than a traditional piano. The other instruments the piano emulates is indicated through the individual movement’s titles. The first movement, “Bell Chorale,” begins with a chorale in the uppermost register of the piano while the pianist simultaneously hits the piano’s beams. The chorale reoccurs throughout the entire work, both in pitch and rhythm. In contrast, the second movement, “Bass Drum Aria,” explores the murky lowest registers of the piano.
The third movement, “Muted Glissando Toccata,” features the three main melodic notes of the chorale. In this movement, the pianist places his or her hands inside the piano, gliding up and down the same strings to produce different harmonics. The fourth movement, “Tambourine March,” imitates a rhythmic tambourine, with the pianist hitting the beams with his or her hands and fingertips, as well as hitting the strings inside the piano in a rhythmic dance. In the fifth movement, "Autoharp," the pianist strums the inside strings of the piano with one hand while plucking the melody from the first movement with the other hand. The sixth movement, “Didgeridoo,” sounds like the didgeridoo, as the pianist scrapes a note with their fingernail, while gliding up and down towards the hammers to create an overtone series similar to a didgeridoo. The final movement, “Cimbalom,” depicts the instrument with the pianist muting the middle register of the piano with a cloth. The main chorale returns again in its clearest form since the opening movement.
Performers: Liza Sobel Crane, Movements 1-4; Reading by Vicky Chow, Movement 5; Liza Sobel Crane, Movements 6-7
Three Etudes for Trumpet (2021)
Duration: 4.5 minutes
Three Etudes for Trumpet was commissioned by the Next Generation Trumpet Competition . The competition helps student trumpet performers focus and improve playing new music techniques through etudes designed to work on specific performance skills. It was premiered by Andrew Kozar.
I discussed with Andrew what aspects of trumpet playing he felt young performers could improve upon. The first movement, "Chuckle" focuses on fast, technical playing in the trumpet's low and middle registers and quickly moving the harmon mute. The sound creates a laughing like sound, as the title demonstrates.
The second etude, "Groan," Andrew wanted to focus on microtonal playing. The challenge was to utilize microtones in a controlled approach. The sound of moving from our equal tempered tuning to a microtonal tuning created a moaning sound.
The third etude "Whispered Conversations," focuses on on breath sounds. The players moves from a pitchless breath sound to a pitched sound, and all the sounds in between. The frequent changes from pitchless to pitch sounds creates a dialogue.
Etude 1 "Chuckle" begins at 1:20 in video
Performer: Andrew Kozar (trumpet)
Etude 2 "Groan" begins at 2:47 in video
Etude 3 "Whispered Conversations" begins at 2:50 in video
Duets
Dance and Meditation (2025)
Duration: 12 minutes
Dance and Meditation was commissioned by Missing Piece with support from a grant form the Illinois Arts Council. Often with violin and cello duos, it is typical to have the violin play the melody while the cello accompanies. I wanted to explore bringing the two instruments together as if they are one voice.
The first movement is a fast dance. The two instruments often play in a similar register together. The movement's opening main motive is developed with an almost obsessive focus, becoming faster and more frantic. Finally the movement climaxes with a celebratory return to the opening gesture, now with the violin playing the main motive in a much higher register while the cello plays leaping patterns and quickly switches between pizz. and arco. The movement concludes with a hushed slower version of the opening theme.
The second movement, "Meditation," is much calmer. Neither the violin or cello plays the melody at first. I explore adding a third voice of the two instrumentalists singing a wordless vocalise.
Performers: Missing Piece Duo, Dan Galat (violin), Kelly Quesada (cello)
Liza discusses her composition at 6:30 in the video. Performance begins at 8:40 in the video.
Five Vignettes for Cello and Piano (2013)
Duration: 10.5 minutes
As a singer who frequently performs with piano, I have noticed that while some songs may hardly feature the piano, in other songs, the pianist nearly performs a piano concerto. While composing this piece, I began to question the relationship between accompanying versus playing a duet. The first movement features the cello almost exclusively with a few notes played by the piano. The second movement is the reverse concept with the piano playing the majority of the time and the cello playing only a few notes. The third movement again features the cello as the main instrument, however the piano has a more prominent role. The fourth movement again reverses the relationship with the piano playing the majority of time and the cello playing the accompaniment. Finally, in the fifth movement, the cello and piano are both equals.
Performers: Movements 1, 3, and 5: Tim Leonard (cello), Michelle Rofrano (piano); Movement 2 and 4: Haewon Yoon (cello) Rebecca Choi (piano)