COMMISSIONED WORK – Lowell Liebermann’s Moment Musical, Op. 144
The Hilton Head International Piano Competition realizes a long-held goal this year—the commissioning of a new solo piano piece to be performed by each competitor. Similar to many elite competitions who commission new works to showcase music by living composers, Director Steve Shaiman decided that this was a priority for the 2025 HHIPC.
He felt that this would be a unique experience for our competitors, and considering that the HHIPC is one of America’s premier piano competitions, he sought to engage a premier American composer to write the piece. Steve was delighted that the prolific composer/pianist Lowell Liebermann agreed to add this to his busy schedule, and the score for his new Moment Musical, Op. 144, was received in late 2024 (and please scroll all the way down to read the composer’s words about his inspiration for this beautiful work). Special thanks go to our benevolent impresarios who made this commission possible: Louis K. and Susan P. Meisel (New York) and Peggi Moon and Bill Hutchinson (Hilton Head).
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“This is a special challenge for the artists and exciting for our sophisticated audiences! We will hear 20 world premiere performances of this piece, since it has never been played in public. We are thrilled that celebrated American composer Lowell Liebermann has created our very first competition work.” DIRECTOR STEVE SHAIMAN
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Another exciting new element this year is a special prize for best performance of this new work, and most appropriately, Mr. Liebermann himself will select the individual who receives the inaugural JIM NEUMEISTER MEMORIAL PRIZE. Jim, who passed away in 2023, was a treasured member of the HHIPC family, supporting the competition in many ways beyond financial. This special prize of $1,000 in his honor is generously sponsored by Jim’s wife Marty.
[NB: On March 17, The Jim Neumeister Memorial Prize was awarded to Dominic Chamot (Switzerland/Germany). Please watch his performance HERE]
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LOWELL LIEBERMANN, Composer, Pianist
At once unabashedly romantic and modern, American composer Lowell Liebermann is internationally recognized as an artist of uncommon profundity and popularity.
Mr. Liebermann has written more than 140 works in all genres, several of which have gone on to become standard repertoire for their instruments. He has composed four symphonies, a Concerto for Orchestra, three piano concertos, and concertos for many other instruments. His works have been premiered by major orchestras, including the Dallas Symphony, the National Symphony, and the New York Philharmonic. His Sonata for Flute and Piano and Gargoyles for piano are among the most popular contemporary works for their instruments. His full-length ballet Frankenstein, co-commissioned by London’s Royal Ballet and the San Francisco Ballet, has been released on Blu-Ray and DVD. Mr. Liebermann has written two full-length operas, both enthusiastically received at their premieres: The Picture of Dorian Gray, the first American opera commissioned by and premiered in 1995 by l’Opéra de Monte-Carlo, and Miss Lonelyhearts, after the novel by Nathanael West, for The Juilliard School’s 100th anniversary in 2005.
A prolific pianist both live and in recording, Mr. Liebermann has given the world premieres of his own solo piano works as well as works by his fellow composers Ned Rorem and William Bolcom. In 2021, the Steinway label released a CD of works by Schubert, Liszt, Kabeláĉ, Busoni, and his own composition. A year later, Steinway sponsored a second solo piano album, The Devil’s Lyre, featuring music of contemporary British composer David Hackbridge Johnson.
Mr. Liebermann has over 150 recordings to his credit, released on Deutsche Grammophon, Hyperion, Virgin Classics, Hungaroton, New World Records, Albany, RCA Red Seal, Reference, and others. His works are published by Theodore Presser Company, Schott, and Faber Music. He has been invited to serve as Composer-in-Residence for numerous distinguished organizations including the Dallas Symphony, the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, and the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Mr. Liebermann has been a faculty member of the Composition Department of the Mannes School of Music of the New School since 2012. He was the founding conductor of the Mannes American Composers Ensemble, devoted to performing works of living American composers.
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MR. LIEBERMANN HAS PROVIDED THIS BRIEF NOTE ABOUT HIS OP. 144…
The title Moment Musical has been utilized in the past most famously by two composers, Schubert and Rachmaninoff. I dearly love both composers, but it is Schubert who has become especially important to me as the years go by, and it was he that I was thinking of when I appropriated the title for my own piece. (In the plural, the title would be Moments Musicaux and I indeed intend to write more of them to eventually create a set as both Schubert and Rachmaninoff have done.)
My use of the title is not meant to evoke any specific aspect of Schubert’s style, but there are at least a couple of superficial elements in my piece that are often found in Schubert’s keyboard writing: namely the use of binary (otherwise known as ABA) form and the use of an obsessive ostinato figure that underpins each of the work’s sections (something that is perhaps more readily obvious in Schubert’s Impromptus than in his Moments Musicaux.)
My own music (instrumental as opposed to song) is rarely programmatic, in that it is rarely “about” extra-musical things, one of the many reasons I feel a kinship with Schubert. It is music for music’s sake, about nothing more than the notes themselves and the abstract emotions that they evoke, rather than trying to paint extra-musical pictures or narrate specific emotional situations. As this was written to be a “test piece” for the 2025 Hilton Head competition, my hope was to write a piece that would highlight the musicality of the performers, although it is not without its technical challenges in its middle section.
LOWELL LIEBERMANN, Composer, Pianist