Zoopraxis (2023) is a ferocious, driving, virtuosic solo piano toccata. The name comes from
Greek loosely meaning “animal motion”, used by Eduard Muybridge in his Zoopraxiscope that
showed the first motion pictures of running horses and other animals. It opens with an opening
theme racing in the lowest register of the piano which erupts into tense rapid-fire hand-over-
hand repetitions, and passages of almost manic momentum mixed with thumping pulses and
violent spikes. This builds in developing variations of the opening ideas, then repeats the same
basic music in a different key until it suddenly builds and crests over an edge. The final section
starts as a far away coda of pulses, something over the horizon that grows closer until a
triumphant mix of all these elements crashes on the piano - a celebration of being animal.
Zoopraxis (2023) is a ferocious, driving, virtuosic solo piano toccata. The name comes from
Greek loosely meaning “animal motion”, used by Eduard Muybridge in his Zoopraxiscope that
showed the first motion pictures of running horses and other animals. It opens with an opening
theme racing in the lowest register of the piano which erupts into tense rapid-fire hand-over-
hand repetitions, and passages of almost manic momentum mixed with thumping pulses and
violent spikes. This builds in developing variations of the opening ideas, then repeats the same
basic music in a different key until it suddenly builds and crests over an edge. The final section
starts as a far away coda of pulses, something over the horizon that grows closer until a
triumphant mix of all these elements crashes on the piano - a celebration of being animal.
