Serenade was begun in 1984 shortly after arriving in Canada, finished in 1986 and revised several times. A few movements were replaced, a few altered significantly.
I wanted to make a companion piece for the gorgeous French harp music of Debussy, Ravel, Ropartz and Roussel, and in so doing following the example of my teacher Roger Marsh, who had done the same with his lovely Two movements for harp and Ensemble. There are 20 short movements, and I was interested in developing ideas across movement breaks. For example movements 2, 5 and 7 are related, each taking the ideas a little further.
The piece was first performed on April 4th 1986 at the Open Space Gallery in Victoria, the composer conducting.