The Music of Erik Lotichius and Heather Pinkham — Mills Music Now

Sunday, November 15, 2026, 6:00 PM

M14-202 Music Building Littlefield Concert Hall, M14-Lobby Music Building

Tickets

Presented by Other Minds, with the Center for Contemporary Music and Mills Performing Arts

Event is open to the public
Registration Requested
Free with an NU ID

Join us for an evening with pianists Ralph van Raat and Heather Pinkham to play the music of Erik Lotichius and Heather Pinkham.

Ignored and, in some cases, outwardly reviled during his early years of composition for the consonant qualities of his music, Belgian Erik Lotichius (1929–2015) nonetheless achieved recognition late in life for his fusion of classical structure with gestures and systems borrowed from jazz and minimalism. Tonight’s concert features selections from Anaitalrax, a series of 25 compositions that Lotichius worked on between 1983 and 2013. While the title seems a nonce word, reading it backwards enlightens. The compositions are dedicated to the Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti, though the pianist Ralph van Raat, featured tonight, notes that you can also “hear echoes from the works of Ravel, Weill, Dave Brubeck, [and] Bartók.” Joining van Raat for a selection of Anaitalraxes for two pianos is Heather Pinkham, whose own compositions are featured in the second half of our evening. Pinkham is a California-native who now lives in the Netherlands, and her sprightly and searching post-minimalist work—selected from her recent CD Onward, on Zefir Records—provides a buoyant ending to tonight’s event.

Program:
Erik Lotichius (1929–2015)

     Anaitalrax (25 Virtuosic Piano Studies, to D. Scarlatti with apologies) (1983–2013)

          11 Vivace (US Premiere)
          13 Allegro (US Premiere)
          16 bis Moderato (US Premiere)
          15 Voor Ralph v. R. (US Premiere)

Ralph van Raat, piano

     Anaitalrax for 2 pianos

          1 Poco allegro (World Premiere)
          3 Andante (US Premiere)
          6 Allegro non troppo (Ragtime) (US Premiere)

Ralph van Raat & Heather Pinkham, pianos

– Intermission –

Heather Pinkham (b. 1989)

     Mechanical Transcendence (2019)

     Onward (2021)

Ralph van Raat & Heather Pinkham, pianos

This concert is made possible through a generous contribution from the Netherlands-American Foundation.

More information: https://www.otherminds.org/the-music-of-erik-lotichius-and-heather-pinkham/