Dance Tribute for Orchestra with Piano

Description

Program Notes

(A Back-Story of the “Dance Tribute”)

I first drafted “Dance Tribute” back in my days at the University of Ife, in Nigeria. The original version for 2 violins and piano premiered 1987 at the National Theatre, Lagos, Nigeria, with the late Prof. Ajibola Mesida on violin 1, me on violin 2, and Ghanaian comrade Vincent Richter on piano. Great memories still, from way back then! Then when I moved to the United States in 1990 piano professor and then Orchestra conductor at Principia College, Elsah, IL Dr. Marie Jureit-Beamish asked me to arrange it for piano and the  college orchestra, its current form. The rest, as the saying goes, is history, for the little work that redefined my career from electrical/electronic engineer to composer!

The original version of the Dance Tribute for two violins and piano was dedicated to my friend Bayo who always would light up whenever he’d pop in a cassette of Mozart or Handel.