I cannot not create! And unless what I create resonates with the beauty of humanity, the beauty of this planet, I have failed my personal and artistic responsibilities. I compose because music is my instrument of consciousness. Without consciousness, we are doomed as a race, a species, a living organism. I am witness to a disappearing rain forest. I am witness to a sedation of consciousness through the anti-culture of television. I am a witness to separation and fear. The only antidote I have is Truth and Beauty as I see it, and let it come through me. My hope, my prayer is that I am part of creating that place where otherwise conflicting entities can come together as one. For me, that transcends all other matters of importance. Jan Skrdlik, cellist with the Wallinger String Quartet, asked me if I would write a piece specifically for him and piano. He and I had become friends as a result of collaborating during the recording of the Nuzerov String Quartets #1-10. He had even driven with his wife seven plus hours just to see Nuzerov and what had inspired my writing the quartets that he had so enjoyed playing. A little more than a year passed before I finally managed to settle in to write anything, let alone his request. I started the first movement, which is a Hoe Down, in November 2002, at our country house in Wappinger Falls, N.Y., but found myself so distracted that it took until February 2003 to complete it. Ten more months went by before I managed to address Jan's promised piece again on 12/17/03. I managed to compose the first eighteen measures of the second movement before I had to pack my bags and leave for the holidays, wife my wife, Yitka, and son, Sebastian, for the family farm in the Czech Republic. Nuzerov obviously has some magic for me, because in the next two weeks, starting 12/22/03, I finished the second movement 12/24/03, wrote the REGGAE third movement 12/26-29/03, the fourth movement MEDITATION 12/30-31/03 and two hundred and twenty-four measures of the fifth movement before having to pack for our return to New York 1/4/04. Dealing with jet lag, catching up with all the paper work that had piled up and settling back into normal daily life, I didn't address the finale of the work, which was the coda, until 1/17/04, finishing it 1/18/04.
About the Author: Hayden Wayne (born 3/2/49) (composer/librettist) began playing piano at the age of four and played tenor drum in the orchestra pit of The King And I at the age of five, performed his first composition in concert at the age of eleven, won 2nd Prize medal for piano solo from the New York State Music Awards at fifteen, performed with major-label backed bands as Man (CBS Records) and Jobriath (Elektra Records), and toured with Sly Stone, the Yardbirds with Jimmy Page, Billy Joel, The Chamber Brothers, Gordon Lightfoot, Richie Havens, Gladys Knight, The Fifth Dimension. As a composer, in 1983 Mr. Wayne opened a new theater for the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles with his metaphorical circus Wire, won $10,000 USD as national first place in 1987 from the National Institute for Music Theater with NEON (A Street Opera) . In 2002, NEON won a 25,000 DM prize in the International Prague Opera Competition. He was commissioned to write IN MEMORIAM: A CELEBRATION, by the Interfaith Concert of Holocaust Remembrance, which premiered at Saint John the Divine in New York in 1993. Subsequently linked with SINFONIETTA #1: The Klezmer and AN ELEGY INTO MADNESS, specifically commissioned for the Fiftieth Anniversary of Israel, and titled A TRIPTYCH, had its world première at Mandel Hall, the University of Chicago in January 1998. In February 1995, his SYMPHONY #4-FUNK had its world premiere at the Janacek Theatre in Brno, The Czech Republic. It sold out in one week seven months in advance. Mr. Wayne also has several film scores and award-winning commercials for television to his credit. To date, Mr. Wayne has written over four hundred compositions including: THE SYMPHONY OF FRIENDS, the ballet CIRQUE DE LA LUNE, DRACULA (Opera Erotica), PIANO CONCERTO #1-The Rock "n' Roll and CELLO CONCERTO #1 which are paired as a diptych: SINFONIETTA #2 (It's a Boy) and #3-The Emerald; VIOLIN/PIANO SONATA-The "Kraft"; The Symphonic Trilogy: #2-REGGAE, #3-HEAVY METAL, #4-FUNK; and SYMPHONY #5-AFRICA [A Tone Poem] (all recorded by the State Philharmonic of Brno, on New Millennium Records); the choral symphony SYMPHONY #6-THE GIFT; SYMPHONY #7-CELESTIAL DANCES and SYMPHONY #8-1421; THE NUZEROV STRING QUARTETS: #1-THE ROSENBERGER VARIATIONS, #2 THE ROMANTIC, # 3, 4 and 5, # 6,7 & 8, and # 9 & 10 performed by the Wallinger String Quartet; FIVE DANCES FOR CELLO AND PIANO and PIANO QUINTET #1 (all available on New Millennium Records) and hundreds of songs in various eclectic styles.