Ben Tibbetts Studio: Piano Performances and Original Music

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High Strung
New Music for Violin and Piano

Watch this concert as a YouTube playlist

Audio only:
1. Encroachment by Carol Brown (Inversion)
2. Fantasy & Rondo by Keith Allegretti
3. Dancing at Midnight by Brittney Benavidez (One In A Melody)
4. The Emperor's New Clothes by Ben Tibbetts
5. Rhapsody by Graham Yates (Timbral Music Studios / North Austin Piano Studio)

The "High Strung" concert was organized by CTC Music Publishing, a group that I'm a part of here (which also put on the Bitter Valentine's Concert.) It was a collaborative project to produce new music for violin and piano. We met our fundraising goal for the project and had the concert on July 30. The show featured five new premieres in various musical styles. And I thought it went extremely well.

What I liked the most about this concert was the amount of variety between the different composers. You could really feel everyone's personality come through their music. My piece was a live rendition of The Emperor's New Clothes. I worked with Julie Silva as the narrator and Phil Davidson on violin. Many thanks to our donors on Facebook and Indiegogo, who helped us make sure the performers in this concert were appropriately compensated for their time.

About "The Emperor's New Clothes"

"The Emperor's New Clothes" was a story by Hans Christian Anderson. Since its publication in 1837, "The Emperor's New Clothes" has enjoyed enduring popularity. It has been adapted into many forms of media and translated into over a hundred languages.

However, the tale itself is much more ancient. Anderson's work was based on a Spanish parable appearing in the 1335 collection "Libro de los ejemplos". And there are other, older interpretations of the folktale. One version dates back at least to the 1000's in the early medieval literature of India. Although the details vary, "The Emperor's New Clothes" has persisted through various cultures for a millenium. It's one of the foundational fables in our common heritage.

"The Emperor's New Clothes" is a story about pretending to believe something you don't. It is a story about seeing things that are not there, or at least claiming not to see that which is obvious to you. It is a story about saving face, about saying what your neighbors want to hear, and doing what your neighbors expect. And it is a story about how that spell can be broken.

Sheet music for this piece is available to subscribers.

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