Cyan, for solo piano, was composed during the winter of 2006-2007, and premiered by Louise Thomas, June 28, 2007, at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall, New York. This work was composed for Susan Svrcek, who gave its West-Coast premiere on March 17, 2009 on the ‘Piano Spheres’ series, in Zipper Hall at the Colburn School in Los Angeles.
The title refers to a particular shade of the color blue and is a description of many aspects of the work. Most literally, there are nine sections that move through various hues from dark to light and back again. These sections are differentiated though diversities of texture, register, and figuration, and are united by the constant use of thematic materials, formal elisions, and harmonic movement. Other illusions implied by the title include a general feeling of the coldness of winter, the motions of water, the darkness of the night.