Mccollough, Teresa / New American Piano Music
Album: New American Piano Music   Collection:General
Artist:Mccollough, Teresa   Added:Aug 2001
Label:Innova Recordings  

Recent Airplay
1. Nov 23, 2001: Memory Select
Strains and Restraints
3. Sep 22, 2001: strange attractors
Strains and Restraints
2. Oct 10, 2001: Brownian Motion
Sonata for Piano

Album Review
nari
Reviewed 2001-09-16
Teresa McCollough "New American Piano Music" [label: AMC]

Solo piano music partitioned into short, 2-7 min. songs. Draws on a number of styles, but is best labeled contemporary classical. It kind of has a modern sound in that it uses post-romantic/jazz harmonies, but it's not avant garde (she plays the front of the piano, not the back). This is Teresa McCollough performing the music of 7 different composers (listed along the side). *Quite* a lot of variety here, so browse them all for the sound you're looking for.
-nari
1. "etude on swirls of notes" - dark, guttural & fast paced
2. low key quieter muse; offputting harmonies, uncomfortable - nice :)
3. same mood as 2 - offputing, but medium tempo -- like jagged snippets of thoughts jumbled together; crawls around the piano, becomes more urgent with slammed notes
4. spritely rag-time style track that sounds like a remix of The Entertainer
5. syncopated, odd meter; cascading rolls of airy notes
6. slower, quieter, thoughtful song
7. blues scale, schnazzy rhythms, over the top rolls
8. evil spider - crawling midpaced melody; calms down and becomes an odd progression of hollow, benign chords that don't really go in any one direction
9. stacatto march, punctuated by poignant chords
10. light and quick, scurrying of notes, playful
11. somewhat slower contemplative track, chilly jazzy harmonies
12. ditto above; even colder and more moody with dramatic swells
13. flurry of chiming notes, kind of like a sky full of fireflies
14. odd introduction, but most of the song is a gentle, almost traditional sounding lament
15. cascade of dissonant chords underneath an insistent melody; pretty
16. unsettling open chords, feeling of unrest
17. has a rocking lilt to it, waltz-like but in 5, pleasant

Track Listing
1. Bam!   9. Sonata NO.2, OP.121
2. Nocturnal   10. Sonata NO.2, OP.121
3. Close Enough for Jazz   11. Sonata for Piano
4. Prelude and Fugue Xiii   12. Sonata for Piano
5. Vernacular Dances   13. Sonata for Piano
6. Vernacular Dances   14. Sandhill Crane
7. Vernacular Dances   15. Strains and Restraints
8. Sonata NO.2, OP.121   16. Strains and Restraints
  17. Strains and Restraints