Has anyone ever heard of the composer Gautam Malhotra or his composition "The Basement Sonata"?
The only reference to this piece I have is from an old computer program called Music Ace 2. The program includes a (MIDI) recording of "The Basement Sonata," attributed to this person. I am wondering if this composer and/or piece of music really exists.
I had tears in my eyes as i read this. my name is gautam malhotra and i composed "Basement Sonata" in high school; it was writtent fairly spontaneously after I had to clean a sewage flood in my basement. I was attending the Pingry School in Martinsville, NJ where it was performed at "A Night of Original Compositions" by other pingry students (and me conducting very poorly). A few years later, one of my best friends at the time, Christopher Fresolone, was working on "Music Ace" at Harmonic Vision and suggested that the simplicity of "Basement Sonata" could work well with the computer program. I was grateful that he included it. Now I am a physician (PMR) working in the VA healthcare system in NJ and only recently getting back to composing music. I plan to record and release my old compositions including basement sonata. If there is interest, i'd be happy to share the manuscripts and recordings sooner. Feel free to contact me directly with further questions. And thank you for sharing your feelings about basement sonata!
This answer is more of a work-in-progress than anything, but the message is that the trail is very cold at this point, and there is little out there. Posting the answer anyway, in the hope that it will cause other information to come to light to improve it, or for a more definitive answer to surface.
"Harmonic vision" who own the "Music Ace" series of music education software titles have a search page for composers of music in the series - and neither the piece nor the composer are mentioned.
Some further searching revealed this person, who has such a liking for the piece that he has rearranged it. Maybe you could try to contact him.
Here is a Gautam Malhotra, who has studied music : no obvious reason to say they are the same, but worth looking into
