The Blue Hula

Press and Program Notes

The Blue Hula was premiered by the New York New Music Ensemble at Carnegie Recital Hall, in May of 1982. The version for solo piano was premiered by pianist Leonid Kuzmin at Alice Tully Hally, Lincoln Center, on October 28, 1990.

Schott Helicon Music Corporation (BMI) publishes the score as edition number EA530.

The Blue Hula
Program note by the Composer

"I wrote The Blue Hula -- named for an old American dance form -- when I was living in Hawaii in 1980. It is ten minutes long, in three movements and scored for what many composers in the twentieth cenury have come to call 'Pierrot Plus Percussion.' The same ensemble -- flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano -- which Schoenberg used for Pierrot Lunaire, with the addition of percussion, and which instrumentation has become something of a standard twentieth century ensemble.

"The Blue Hula was commissioned by the New York New Music Ensemble, and is dedicated to Joseph Machlis and Aryeh Stollman."

The New York Times
Edward Rothstein

"Tobias Picker's The Blue Hula (1981) was a lusher entertainment...tossing in a bit of jazz, a bit of tango and a bit of Stravinskyan wit."

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