June Shortwave Birthday Gift (2 pianos)

Is somebody's birthday coming up? Give them something a little different. I wrote this Birthday Gift for a dear benefactor of mine back in the 1990s, June Goldsmith. June founded the Music in the Morning concert series in Vancouver back in 1985. From 1993 to 1995, I was Composer-in-Residence. On the 10th Anniversary, I wrote a special piece for a birthday party held in June's honour. It's a strange little piece that gradually reveals the notes of the famous Happy Birthday song. At the time, I was experimenting with computer-assisted composition, getting a computer to reorder musical materials in a "controlled-random" way. So I fed the computer the basic rhythm of Happy Birthday, and the notes, and then had them reordered. Of course I chose the final notes and rhythms and fussed with it to make it sound good, and wrote the ending by hand. I hope you enjoy the result.