This work was jointly commissioned by California Music Teachers Association and Music Teachers National Association in 2024 and was premiered on October 19, 2024, in Long Beach State University’s Bob Cole’s Conservatory of Music at the 2024 CAPMT State Conference in California by Duo Art.
“Mirrored Rain” was inspired by different aspects of rain, reflected in three movements:
“Glass Rain” is borrowing its title from the sculpture which I have seen in Seattle’s Japanese Garden in the summer of 2023. The sculpture was installed right in the garden and imitated rain made of glass. It was moving naturally, activated by the wind, and was integrated beautifully into the natural landscape.
Second movement, “Midsummer Rain”, pictures what is called in Russian a “blind rain” – a type of quick rain which cuts through the sun rays on a bright summer day. There were many of those rains while I was writing the entire cycle in Millay Arts residency in New York State in the summer of 2024.
The third and final movement, “Pineapple Express”, borrows its name from a recent atmospheric river of the same name, which brought unusually strong and long rains to California in winter of 2024. “Pineapple Express” happens when moisture builds up in the tropical Pacific around Hawaii and wallops the U.S. and Canada’s West Coasts with heavy rainfall and snow. Its strength is pictured with many percussive effects in Piano part 2, rhythmically matched with the robust monophonic theme in Piano part 1.
Throughout the entire cycle the first piano plays normally, while the second piano is combining the standard performance practice with extended techniques, playing inside the piano on strings, muting the stings with hand and using sticks and mallets in the last movement to play on metal bars inside the piano, on piano lid and on strings. None of these techniques require to “prepare” piano or damage strings any other parts of the piano.

This work was jointly commissioned by California Music Teachers Association and Music Teachers National Association in 2024 and was premiered on October 19, 2024, in Long Beach State University’s Bob