I'm pleased to announce the first American performances of a movement for symphonic strings, ELEGY. This nine-minute movement will be done in New York City by New York Pro Arte on March 22nd (Raffael Adler, cond.) and in San Francisco on April 3rd by the Women's Philharmonic (Apo Hsu, cond.). Other American and European performances are on tap. (It has been recorded by the Czech Radio Philharmonic for a CD of my orchestral music to be released by Arabesque this fall.) ELEGY is all song and luxuriant harmony with very flexible phrasing in a slow tempo. It was written in memory of my aunt, a brave and vibrant woman who died in fall 1997 at much too young an age. In this piece I've tried to speak from my heart; those who expect my music always to be rhythmically crisp, frontal and glossy, will find a change of pace here. (It maintains a flowing yet intense 4/4 or 5/4 throughout.) One final note: Although ELEGY freestands as a movement for independent programming, it's also the middle movement of a new 3-movement work for symphonic strings: REMEMBER ME [ Ghosts, Elegy, Dancin' over my grave], c. 35:00. I got to the double bar of the third movement on Sunday afternoon (a jazz-based, almost demonic passacaglia), and the piece as a whole will be ready to circulate this spring. Judith Lang Zaimont Professor of Composition School of Music - University of Minnesota WEBsite: http://209.46.94.163/jzaimont/