Australian composer Lyle Chan has led a rich and diverse life, working as virologist and activist during the HIV-AIDS epidemic as well as a 10 year stint as Artists & Repertoire Manager for ABC Classics, creating over 200 recordings.

All of this and his widespread upbringing – childhood in Malaysia, adolescence and coming out as gay in the US, and half his life in Australia – plays into his music. “My musical sketches are a diary first, and the completed music the memoir,” he says in the liner notes.

He talks of his compositions as “perpetual works in progress” – hence one string quartet, one orchestral work, one musical drama and this lovely addition, Solo Piano, to his “Untitled” catalogue. Its open-form pieces started 42 years ago when he was 17 and, in its entirety, lasts for three hours. Each performance, therefore, including this one by his friend Brisbane pianist Alex Raineri, is different.   

John Cage has been a big influence on him and this is evident in the short fragments, Moments for Prepared Piano and Bracket Pieces that punctuate the album. There are so many wonderful and inspiring moments in this 76 minute “actualisation” that you can spend several happy hours discovering them for yourself (imagine trying to summarise Pepys’s Diary!)

Standouts are tributes to boyfriends Geoffrey and Michael and a fleeting encounter with a Wisconsin Cowboy; a COVID lockdown sonata for Raineri, with its tributes to Ives, Busoni and Brahms, and the playful Pantun (after Ravel) and the haunting Tal u’geshem, inspired by meeting Holocaust survivor the late Eddie Jaku.

Composer: Lyle Chan
Works: Untitled Solo Piano
Performers: Alex Raineri p
Label: Decca 7140414