Commissioned Work

Eleanor Aversa: PLPS commissioned 4 elementary/early intermediate pieces from Dr. Eleanore Aversa, Professor of Composition at Berklee College of Music, Boston, MA during the 2019-2020 academic school year in celebration of women composers and composition workshops with students at the piano studio. My students love these pieces and I know your students will too! Information about purchasing is on Eleanor Aversa’s website.

Watch and Listen to this short story video with music written by Eleanor "Because He Was a Weasel." Eleanor and Friends present wholesome, funny, and life-affirming songs for kids and parents: https://www.eleanorandfriends.com. Fans of Peter and the Wolf and the Musicians of Bremen will appreciate this musical story with a narrator and jazz ensemble.

Arrangements of Historic Women Composers for Elementary and Early Intermediate students. PLPS commissioned Berklee College of Music Professor of Composition Eleanor Aversa and two of her composition students, Marc Yu and Cameron Smith, to arrange 9 pieces for early level piano students of all ages. They are introduced to the music of historic women composers, including Hildegard von Bingen, Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, Amy Beach and Florence Price. At this time, no early level arrangements of this music exist. PLPS identified this need and weare filling in this gap as an ongoing project. Published in multiple levels on Sheet Music Plus; search using the name Penny Lazarus. (2019-2021)

Arrangements of Historic Women Composers for Elementary and Early Intermediate students published in Time Warp Productions SuperScore App: This is the premiere iPad app for viewing, managing, and interacting with a library of musical scores. SuperScore provides nearly unlimited notation sizes using pinch and spread gestures on the screen. Our early-level pieces on this platform come with detailed histories of the period and the composer, including the difficulties women composers had to overcome to get to work and publish because of their gender. After downloading the app for free, our work is in the Lazarus Publishing folder in the SuperScore store. All proceeds go toward commissioning more arrangements of composers left out of history. (2021)

Folk Music from Rapa Nui, (Easter Island) Chile. During the 2018-2019 academic year, our students studied music about Oceans and Island Countries. We used this opportunity to bring attention to the plastic pollution of our beaches and world waterways. We collaborated with the Rapa Nui School of Music and Culture on Easter Island, a school built entirely from recycled cans, bottles, and tires that inundate this small volcanic island in the most remote inhabited place on earth. The island is situated near the Great Pacific Garbage Patch which overwhelms the island with debris from the ocean currents. As part of our collaboration, the Rapa Nui school shared with us their national anthem titled “I He A Hotu Matua”, which is the story of the first settler and honored King of the island. We share this pdf in the same spirit that the School Rapa Nui shared with us.

Albanian Composer Alban Dhamo: During the 2017-2018 piano year, we focused on Eastern European and Balkan music. Through a mutual friend, we were put in touch with Albanian composer Alban Dhamo of the Lincoln Center for the Arts in Tirana, the capital of Albania. Using Hungarian composer Bela Bartok’s “For Children” music books as a model, PLPS commissioned Alban to compose five songs and three Albanian Traditional Folk Dances for piano. Our students love these bright, short rhythmic pieces. If you are interested in obtaining a copy of “Curly Sheep”, “Spring Started to Come”, “Dance”, “Dance of Macakulli”, “Dance of the Lemons”, “Albanian March”, “When the Sun Sets” and “Waltz”, please contact Penny Lazarus.

Charles writes in the preface: “Several years ago, I composed a set of piano pieces entitled Choctaw Animals. These short pieces were designed to introduce my music to pianists comfortable with works at an early intermediate level of difficulty. They have met with heartening success within both indigenous and non-indigenous communities and have served as musical ambassadors in the US and Abroad. After a recent masterclass with students learning Choctaw Animals [hosted by Penny Lazarus Piano Studio, St. Paul’s Church, Newburyport, MA, May 2023] I realized that there was a need for simpler additions to the zoo. First Choctaw Animals responds to this need. These pieces also focus on several current methodologies in piano pedagogy, with mournful Pvchi Yoshoba (Morning Dove) taking a chordal/triadic approach, sleepy Nits (Bear) a linear one, and mercurial Pash Folakto (Scissor Tail Flycatcher) is a wide-ranging romp over the keyboard with five-finger position complications. [Dedicated to Penny Lazars].