Christmas 2001: The family at home with a few extra friends

Christmastime 2001: Paul and Meg are casting about for ideas for gifts for their combined family of six children and they decide that a set of unique presents would comprise a short piano piece from Paul and a small framed 3" x 5" oil painting from Meg, one of each for each of the six children. Meg's paintings featured the pastoral landscapes around the farm where they lived together in rather artistic, bohemian style, and Paul's keyboard pieces reflected the intuitive, cultural, or  literary interest of each child. As the children ranged in age from 13 to 23 (some were clearly adults by this time) and not only had different interests but different keyboard abilities, Paul varied the style and difficulty of each work to suit the recipient. The style that inspired the piano arrangement of the melody is noted as a subtitle for each piece.

In 2001, Paul had not yet begun to engrave his compositions using computer engraving software, so the original manuscripts given to the children were made using manuscript pad and pencil. The font used in the musical engravings (PDFs) below is called‘Inkpen’, used in these publications to resemble Paul's hand-written manuscripts.

Almost twenty years after their creation, we now present these short piano "Name" works for your purchase/license and enjoyment. The paintings, in their original frames, are pictured with each title, and the works are listed in order of the age and birth order of the receipients, with "Jonathan" being the youngest, and "Vanessa" being the oldest.

We will be adding more to this series - Paul has recently written "Name" works for his grandson, and also for a young friend's birthday. In the meantime we'd loveto know what you think of this series, and if you'd like a "Name" work created for you or as a gift for someone else, let us know and we will be happy to discuss such a commission with you.

Christmas Decor 2001 with the family portrait from a Nova Scotian summer circa 1995, painting by Meg Race

The alphabet chart that dictated the underlying melody of each ‘name’ piece is included below.