Kara is a friend and an accomplished violinist, who was spending a couple of months in Spain.

I had been toying with writing a solo piece for some instrument or other, but hadn't come up with a solid idea, until the thought of a young American violinist visiting Spain for the first time started the wheels turning.

What flowed out was page upon page of dramatic music that presents both the bold posturing of a matador or flamenco dancer and a quiet and contemplative theme.

The piece is musically challenging, but not so difficult that a good player will not find it fun to play. An excellent piece for a recital for a somewhat advanced player, or a showy encore piece.

Or, maybe, just for fun.

One quick performance note for those who might take a cue from the midi-- for some reason unknown to me, the composer program turns some of the ornaments into full turns. All of the ornaments were meant to be simple single tones.

MP3 sound sample: Entire Piece (synthesizer/midi).



KARA IN SPAIN by Tom Kirkland for solo violin with piano accompaniment, comes in a pdf file of 1427K, with a sixteen-page score, a seven-page solo part, and a license page, twenty-four pages in all. Performance time should be about five minutes.