A deliciously ambitious enterprise from Brandon-based pianist Megumi Masaki, this CD-and-Blu-Ray set presents works written for her by four composers, variously for solo piano, electronics, and video. The set offers a wide aesthetic range of approaches, from the elegance of the performer-triggered bell-like cascades of Keith Hamel’s Touch to the hawkish energy of Pat Carrabré’s poetry-infused Orpheus (2).
Finding the sweet spot between piano, electronics, and video, Brent Lee’s Ferrovia is a pastoral ode to distance and waiting. With visuals of trains and passing power lines (from video artist Sigi Torius) and with field recordings of trains, Lee uses electronics to organically expand the piano’s rich harmonic palette. Masaki’s approach to imbuing each phrase with intent draws out a meaningful connection and cohesion between the various parts.
A highlight of the Blu-Ray is Nicole Lizée’s virtuosic Kubrick Études, a set of ten études based on excerpts from the iconic filmmaker’s oeuvre and using “piano, glitch, soundtrack, and film.” (This set of études is Lizée’s second collaboration with Masaki—the first being the Hitchcock Études.) Moving alongside powerful and sometimes humorous excerpts from The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Masaki’s playing adds a new dimension of expression to the footage, sometimes with a grotesque melody, sometimes with the speeding up or “melting down” of material. Some of these short works are whimsical, such as the pitch-shifted piano-and-typewriter duet “Qwerty Étude” and “All work, no play (Dull boy Blues).” Others are difficult to watch: the “Rehabilitationary Étude” takes on the Ludovico technique of aversion therapy. Over the set, Lizée walks an adventurous line between reverence and irreverence for the material, which makes us listeners feel a bit like we’re getting away with something. The assimilation of the piano into this complex piece is truly virtuosic, as is Masaki’s committed playing.
MONICA PEARCE is an arts administrator, concert presenter, and composer specializing in opera, chamber music, and everything toy-piano-related. Pearce’s work has been performed by numerous orchestras and ensembles across North America. She was born in Prince Edward Island, began her professional career in Toronto, and recently relocated to McAllen, Texas, where she is working on a feature-length multiwork chamber piece entitled Textile Fantasies. Learn more about Monica.