Histories (Sophia Subbayya Vastek, Piano)

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.