JIM LAHTI – PROGRAM NOTES

The two works on this recording happen to bookend the pandemic. Music for Strings, Percussion & Piano was composed as the world was shutting down in 2020 and though not completed until 2024 the Sinfonia concertante for Woodwind Quintet & Strings was started in 2022 while most of us were still staying home a good bit of the time and were still uncertain about what the outcome might be.

Music for Strings, Percussion & Piano has a classical structure and is in four contrasting (and fairly traditional) movements: a fast first movement in sonata form, a lyrical slow movement, a scherzo, and a finale, though the finale doesn’t end in any grandiose fashion; it becomes slow and fades off into silence at the end. The work is dedicated to my wife Mary who managed to keep me as sane as possible during the lockdown.

The Sinfonia concertante also possesses all the ingredients of a multi-movement work but despite that it is written in one movement. It is dedicated to my dear friend Ariel Francoeur who also helped with the sanity business and was one of the few people we saw during the entirety of the whole depressing horror show.

JIM LAHTI BIO

Jim Lahti is a composer and pianist living in New York City. He studied composition at Sonoma State University in northern California and at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City. Jim has composed works in a variety of genres, from chamber music to choral works, orchestral music, musicals, two operas, a requiem mass and film scoring. He has received awards for his compositions from the New York State Council on the Arts as well as the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Jim has performed with many chamber groups and was the pianist in the OMNI Ensemble for many years. He has played in nightclubs and has also worked as both a church organist and choir director. Jim has conducted extensively in both musical theatre productions and operas. His works have been performed throughout North America, in the United Kingdom, and in France.

He lives in New York City with his wife Mary – a singer, actress, dancer, and artist who, as it happens, painted the artwork on the cover of this recording.