Various Artists / Histories (Sophia Subbayya Vastek, Piano)
Album: Histories (Sophia Subbayya Vastek, Piano)   Collection:Classical
Artist:Various Artists   Added:Aug 2017
Label:Innova Recordings  

A-File Activity
Add Date: 2017-08-10 Pull Date: 2017-10-12 Charts: Classical/Experimental
Week Ending: Aug 27 Aug 13
Airplays: 1 1

Recent Airplay
1. Aug 24, 2017: Neural facilitation
Stainless Staining For Piano And Soundtrack (14:53)
2. Aug 10, 2017: Neural facilitation
Dream I For Prepared Piano (3:03)

Album Review
Gary Lemco
Reviewed 2017-08-06
Pianist Sophia Subbayya Vastek dedicated “Histories” to the unseen histories in each of us - the painful and the beautiful. Her father’s death inspired much of the material and its selection. A mixture of traditional and prepared piano, tanpura (a long-necked string instrument), tabla (a pair of South Asian drums), and voice, the music is an amalgam of Western and Indian sonic clusters. The notion of “prepared piano” comes from composer John Cage, represented five times on this disc. Given the repetitions of riffs and bass-ostinato (repeated) patterns, the music assumes a “hypnotic” or New Age affect. The Hijaz Prelude (2011) combines aspects of Arvo Paert with Bach’s C Major Prelude from the Well Tempered Clavier Book I. Dennehy’s piece (2007), highly repetitive, is for piano and fixed soundtrack, exploiting the overtone series based on a fundamental note of g-sharp.

Track Listing
 ArtistTrack Name
1. Harrison, Michael Jaunpuri For Tanpura (Michael Harrison)) And Piano (9:53)
2. Cage, John She Is Asleep (1943) For Voice (Megan Schubert) And Prepared Piano (8:14)
3. Cage, John Dream I For Prepared Piano (3:03)
4. Harrison, Michael Hijaz Prelude For Piano, Tanpura, And Table (Nitin Mitta) (7:47)
5. Cage, John A Room (1943) For Prepared Piano And Percussion (3:07)
6. Cage, John Dream Ii For Piano (3:11)
7. Dennehy, Donnacha Stainless Staining For Piano And Soundtrack (14:53)
8. Cage, John Dream Iii For Prepared Piano (3:07)