Ketty Nez: “suite française” (2024)

Chengcheng Ma, piano Merkin Hall, Kaufman Music Center, New York January 8, 2026 Prelude and Allemande “L’Auguste” 0:03 Courante “L’Arachne” 7:11 Sarabande “La Majesteuse” 9:26 Gavotte “La Bergère” 16:00 Rondeau “Les Abeilles” 21:50 "suite française" is a free meditation on the richly ornamented keyboard music of French Baroque composer Françoise Couperin, court composer for Louis XIV. His movement titles themselves evoke a “court” of colorful characters, and his prolific ornamentation creates a layer of incessant growth. Musical inspiration came from 5 of the 17 movements from Couperin’s first ordre (suite), in book one of Pièces de Clavecin (with his own descriptive titles): the allemande (“L’Auguste”), courante, sarabande (“La Majesteuse”), gavotte, and the first of three rondeaus, “Les Abeilles” (the bees). My own music is interwoven and grows out of fragments of Couperin’s music, forming another musical layer of continual growth and elaboration.