Full Moon Music - Free improvisations for solo piano
SSC1090 2005-05-25
Track List
Preamble - 3:35
A Call To The Spirits - 2:30
The Witch’S Cauldron - 2:12
Nostalgia - 4:07
Fractured Dream - 3:20
On The Dark Side Of The Moon - 7:17
When A Girl Dreams Of Love - 3:37
Beer Drinkers’ Anthem - 2:20
Springtime In The Rose Garden - 2:40
Barren Landscape - 4:00
Young Asses At Play - 2:17
Blues Montage - 7:06
Pilgrimage - 3:45
Redemption - 4:06
Musicians
Armen Donelian - piano
Grand Ideas was years in the making. I did not want to rush it. I can't explain why, call it intuitionof whatever . I just felt the music needed ample time to gestate and mature ...
Then there is the piano on which I recorded the music. My parents bought it when I was 11 and it has inspired me all my life. I truly believe it is inhabibted by living spirits that leap out when I play it.
Reviews
Full Moon Music is a meshing of influences and moods, more like animated suspension...This most recent one, more classical in nature, is more interesting..John Ephland - Downbeat - December 2005 Read the full article
Playing completely improvised "free" pieces at the piano involves very special challenges. Most importantly, the artist must generate form and content without the convenience of song structure. Pianists have taken many approaches � as varied as Cecil Taylor and Keith Jarrett. Armen Donelian uses his experience with European concert music, jazz and other genres to generate compositionally cohesive
statements that make full use of the piano's resources and his world-class
technique. Without being self-indulgent, he "gets out of his own way" and allows himself to be taken away by the music. This is a beautiful and personal recording.
�Fred Hersch
Full Moon Music, this new cd you're holding by Armen Donelian, is a wonderful collection of free improvisations for solo piano. To improvise freely over the course of 14 selections is no easy task and Mr. Donelian pulls it off magnificently.
From Preamble, which is the opening track, to Redemption, which is the last track, the music runs the gamut of emotions. Mr. Donelian uses his considerable technique and imagination to create pieces that are in some cases very lyrical, wistful and dreamy and in other cases pieces that are dark, dissonant and stormy.
Mr. Donelian creates his music from a palette of many colors and has a great sense of adventure and I, for one, look forward to the next excursion.
�Kenny Barron
