Halo - Music for Piano
Andrew Matthews-Owen (piano)
Matthews-Owen has long been noted as a sensitive collaborator in his more usual role as an accompanist. But he also holds dear working with composers and, for the first time on disc, he steps...
Halo - Music for Piano
Andrew Matthews-Owen (piano)
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Matthews-Owen has long been noted as a sensitive collaborator in his more usual role as an accompanist. But he also holds dear working with composers and, for the first time on disc, he steps...
About
"I have long enjoyed performing and recording a wonderful variety of contemporary music by some of our most exciting and innovative composers. Most of this repertoire has been for voice and piano, or chamber ensemble, affording me the joy and privilege of working with numerous fine and distinguished musicians.
This CD is however my first recording of contemporary music for solo piano, and has been a revelatory and inspiring experience.
Introducing music written in our own time is atonce a joy and a responsibility. Often, and despite our best efforts , some very good scores are heard on only a handful of occasions. For many listeners it will be their first encounter with a new composer. Thus a clear belief in the sound world of every composer one premieres is vital not just to the success of a new piece by to winning or losing pote ntial admirers for living composers. The composers on this disc dwell in very different yet equally marvellous sound worlds." -Andrew Matthews-Owen
Described recently as a ‘splendid keyboard artist’ (Fanfare Magazine USA), ‘an immaculate accompanist… dashing virtuosity’ (BBC Music Magazine) and ‘a superlative pianist’ (MusicWeb International), Andrew Matthews-Owen enjoys a busy career as a pianist and performance coach. He has partnered numerous leading contemporary singers and musicians and future engagements include recitals with Susan Bickley and Claire Booth featuring premieres of new works by Jonathan Dove and Augusta Read Thomas.
Contents and tracklist
Awards and reviews
January 2018
Matthews-Owen has long been noted as a sensitive collaborator in his more usual role as an accompanist. But he also holds dear working with composers and, for the first time on disc, he steps out solo to present music by three rightly held in high regard…The title describes colours shimmering from the moon – as they do, evocatively, from the piano thanks to Matthews-Owen’s unshowy finesse.
August 2018
Modétudes is beautifully constructed...Enchanting as it and Nocturne (2008) are, both are set in the shade by Halo (1999), Tabakova’s entrancing depiction of a lunar halo seen one summer’s night. Matthews-Owen catches its delicacy and inner steel superbly and his playing throughout is a marvel, as is Nimbus’s recording, though here and there the piano tone is a little wayward.
17th March 2018
Hannah Kendall’s On the Chequer’d Field Array’d is an entertaining attempt to describe the three stages of a chess game in musical form. Kendall’s slow, probing opening leads to a dense middle section and exhausted coda which suggests that the defeated party has taken it pretty badly. And there’s a set of Six Preludes by Joseph Phibbs, improvisatory, unfussy marvels of economy. No. 4, a gentle processional of bell sounds and elegant melody, is irresistible. Especially as played here by dedicatee Andrew Matthews-Owen, another persuasive advocate for new keyboard music.
