Halcyon Days

"Halcyon Days" is a collection of Byron’s vibrant music for mallet percussion ensembles (marimbas, vibraphones, glockenspiels, and chimes) and music for solo and four-hand piano. Michael Byron writes: “Poet Anne Tardos wrote that “Time doesn’t pass. We pass.” Most of the pieces on this CD were composed in the 1970s. It seemed like everything was beginning then. Lifelong friends were made, and improbable ideas were shared; composing neither began nor ended. This CD features virtuoso percussionist, and my oldest friend, Bill Winant. Over the last 50 years he has performed and premiered every percussion piece that i’ve ever composed. These pieces, and this CD, are dedicated to him.” Julian Cowley wrote in "The Wire" magazine: “Percussionist William Winant is one of those vital instrumentalists whose technical knowhow and accumulated insight actively encourage composers to venture beyond the securities of convention and compromise. New York based composer Michael Byron dedicates Halcyon Days to Winant, his oldest friend, in acknowledgement of his enabling availability and enduring brilliance as a musical interpreter. Winant reciprocates by breathing fresh air into two adventurous pieces from the early 1970s, one scored for tubular bells, the other for maracas and marimbas. He then leads a tuned percussion quartet in a radiant performance of Byron’s aptly named Music of Steady Light (1978). Two sharply contrasting piano works complete the programme: Starfields (1974), a breathlessly percussive keyboard fusillade, scored for four hands, and Tender, Infinitely Tender (2016), nurtured gently into being through the hands of Lisa Moore.” The members of the William Winant Percussion Group on this recording are William Winant, Tony Gennaro, Michael Jones, and Scott Silar.