IN THE POETRY OF PLACES, THE GIFTED AND VERSATILE PIANIST NADIA SHPACHENKO PREMIERES A REMARKABLE LINEUP OF 10 NEW WORKS.

“An album of solo and duo piano, electronics, and percussion, The Poetry of Places is a superb assemblage of works by various composers. Each piece, inspired by a particular building, weaves together a collage of place and time, and Shpachenko’s evocative interpretations bring insight to the composers’ visions… One of the highlights of The Poetry of Places is Hannah Lash’s Give me your Songs, a multifaceted illustration of Aaron Copland’s house. The songful fragments of material weave and intermingle with one another, creating a fabric that stitches together the cascading off-centered structure and winding pathways surrounding his home. Shpachenko sensitively approaches each attack with breathless understanding of music and place, transporting the listener to upstate New York and through the historic passageways of the house. … Another true standout of the album is Amy Beth Kirsten’s h.o.p.e., inspired by The Big Hope Show in 2015-16 at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. … The moment Shpachenko sings in child-like naivety is pure magic, as the unison slowly breaks and unravels into unison once more, painting the rebirth of spirit and hope in subtle brilliance. … Through the entire album, Shpachenko’s dedication to each work is abundantly clear. Her clean, crisp attacks ring delicious in the ear while the lush garden of warm rumblings evoke the imagination to far off places and civilizations. Her supporting cast of composers and performers enrich The Poetry of Places‘ diversity and nuance, creating a focused, coherent narrative through which to travel.”

“The Poetry of Places is an impressive collection of new works by outstanding contemporary composers, performed by first-rate musicians… Frank’s House [by Andrew Norman] is a wild musical ride through an artistic mind unburdened by limitations… In Full Sail [by Harold Meltzer] smoothly alternates between the serious and the sprightly, with lighthearted stretches bubbling up from under the darker passages. The continuing contrast between introspection and whimsy is an effective metaphor for the constant interplay between responsibility and exhilaration while at sea, as well as in our daily lives… Sí an Bhrú [by Jack Van Zandt] is a wonderfully atmospheric piece with each element carefully crafted and lucidly performed… Hannah Lash’s Give Me Your Songs for solo piano is a return to the solid virtues of the gentle melody and simple harmony, expressively played… The simplicity of materials and the engaging nature of the rhythms make h.o.p.e. [by Amy Beth Kirsten] a fine tribute to the transforming power of art… Alone, in waters shimmering and dark [by James Matheson] is a carefully crafted portrait of nature and solitude, delicately played… There is power and strength, a bit of the mystical, a bustling energy and a determined stridency, all artfully woven throughout the piece. Bangladesh [by Lewis Spratlan] is an impressive rendering of formal architecture into eloquent music… Kolokol [by Nina C. Young] is a beautifully crafted piece that brings the listener face to face with an aural touchstone of Russian history.”

SHPACHENKO SHOWS HERSELF TO BE ONE OF TODAY’S FOREMOST PROMOTERS OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC

“A Great Friend and Champion of New Music”

“As was the case with Nadia Shpachenko’s previous Reference Recordings project, Quotations and Homages, this release features a broad range of contemporary voices, with a scintillating mix of daring sound, genuine beauty, and a commodity too often missing from the new music world: humor. … The CD concludes, appropriately, with a chorus of Russian Orthodox bells… It sounds like a celebration, as does the cumulative effect of this remarkably diverse and thoroughly engaging collection. Nadia Shpachenko is a great friend and champion of new music.”

“The Poetry of Places… is a celebration of new music featuring a formidable pianist in the company of top practitioners in the field... Throughout The Poetry of Places, Nadia Shpachenko valiantly navigates the now tranquil, now tumultuous waters of eight new works, six of them commissioned by and dedicated to her.

Set aside for a moment the technique and musicianship it takes to learn and then master Harold Meltzer’s In Full Sail, an intriguing study in musical pointillism. Meltzer’s work tackles a pianistic description of Frank Gehry’s IAC building in New York’s Chelsea. Then simply focus on the poetic sensibility and musicality required to play Meltzer’s music, and you will begin to get an idea of the accomplishments of Nadia Shpachenko.

Jack Van Zandt’s intense depiction of the massive Neolithic monument Sí an Bhrú and Shpachenko’s now muscular now delicate response to each of its six sections is transfixing, with composer and interpreter joining forces with splendid results.

Hannah Lash wrote Give Me Your Songs inspired by a visit to Aaron Copland’s former home, now a National Historic Landmark and a creative center for American musicians in Cortland Manor, NY. Her composition is a loving tribute to the tranquil environment of Copland’s bucolic refuge, here given a lyrical performance by Shpachenko.

Amy Beth Kirsten composed h.o.p.e, inspired by the transformative power of the 2015 art exhibit The Big Hope Show in The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. Her work is childlike in its unpretentiousness, and both humorous and moving: a composition for toy piano and one female vocalist, which Shpachenko plays with the necessary light touch.

Alone, in waters shimmering and dark is composer James Matheson’s musical response to a sighting of a house on an island in the middle of a lake in Pine Plains, NY. Reminiscent in its first movement of Debussy’s La Cathédral engloutie with its massive cluster chords in the bass allowed by the pianist to linger on by the use of the sustaining pedal, the intriguing three-part tocattina moves on to a syncopated scherzo in Capillary Waves, and on to a brief final movement embodying the peace of static quietude."

“The Poetry of Places is a truly fascinating collection of original music for piano that demonstrates a great variety of approaches. The thematic thread that runs through the album helps create a secondary connection to the music and invites the listener in on a journey through these different spaces. Shpachenko’s technical virtuosity is on display throughout here. She is very adept at making the requisite shifts in tone that this music demands with some rather beautiful lyrical playing that is equally gorgeous in the midst of some of the more visceral pieces. The Reference engineers have captured this in their typical stunning sound. The accompanying booklet is another great asset with pictures of each location and information about the conception of each work. Certainly this is an important album for any music lovers interested in modern piano literature.”

“Those new forces are evident in each of these World Premiere works by eight composers, in this marvellous disc from pianist Nadia Shpachenko. Each of the works is about a special place, with music interacting with a wide range of human activities: fine and applied arts (architecture and design), the heritage arts and the natural world… Each of these works is memorable, and beautifully played by Shpachenko… This is a marvellous project, well worth exploring.”

“The idea of reacting to spaces is the thread that snakes through this fascinating recital. Programming is clearly a strength of Shpachenko, as her disc Quotations & Homages spoke of a similarly adventurous spirit. The superbly produced booklet gives fine background information to the pieces and composers, in tandem with a selection of photographs worth the price of the disc alone. … Shpachenko’s performance is little short of brilliant, the playful aspect almost seeming to capture glints of light from the building as one passes by. … The keyword to this disc is in its title: poetry. There is visual poetry in the images, compositional poetry in the responses that form this program, and performance poetry via Shpachenko. One might even argue that there is a generally unnoticed poetry in the excellence of the recording, which is magnificently managed.”

“The variety of this repertoire is remarkable. Shpachenko performs a veritable tour of structures ancient and modern, producing extraordinary colours and textures from her Steinway D. Her composers sometimes add a second piano, voice, a toy piano, percussion and electronics to build their works. … Each composer provides a few notes on the subject of the commission and it’s immediately striking how much common ground they share with Shpachenko on this abstract challenge. The strong affinity between the principal performer and the composers has produced a thoroughly engaging disc.”

“With the experience of space at its core—and the piano at its heart—this album presents works by living composers inspired by buildings and spaces from Ireland to Santa Monica, Baltimore to Bangladesh, and Massachusetts to New York. The result is an expertly produced multimedia project distilled into sound that startles and transports the listener in waves and jumps (Norman’s Frank’s House), through passage graves (Van Zandt’s Sí an Bhrú), personal trauma (Kirsten’s h.o.p.e.), and melodic mazes (Lash’s Give Me Your Songs). It locates places in time and music in space, evoking culture, and even projecting a nation’s hope (Spratlan’s Bangladesh). Shpachenko and her co-performers’ intuitive musicianship bring it all to life… spot-on performances, excellent engineering.”

“As in her two previous releases, Nadia Shpachenko’s devotion to the music of her time yields vividly contrasted and dazzlingly executed collection of stimulating new piano works. Everything about this disc is world-class: the extensive booklet notes and photos, the clear and full-bodied engineering, and, of course, the incisively committed performances by Shpachenko and her guest artists.”

“The sextet of accomplished composers worked with solitary houses on lakeside islands, an anomalous monolith in Dhaka, the world’s oldest extant building, the complex interior of Aaron Copland’s home, and a unique art museum. How these composers conceived these structures in sound, whether giving them literal measurements or spiritual ideas…that was the challenge of this music, nearly all of it dedicated to Ms. Shpachenko herself. They couldn’t have chosen a more apt executant. While residing mainly on the West Coast, Ms. Shpachenko has given premieres for Elliott Carter, George Crumb, and virtually every other American composer. Last night, though, Ms. Shpachenko played not only these six very different concepts, but she added a toy piano and–in a beautiful croon–her own voice… The result was something magical, a vision which transcended building and, like any art, put us in the mood… truly original… mysterious and touching…”

“With the setting sun backlighting the backdrop of the skyline of lower Manhattan, Shpachenko delivered a pleasing concert of music written about architecture… Shpachenko’s playing matched the verve of the writing, and she was in tune with the subtle but substantial sensitivity in the music… The music was full of unexpected passion and turmoil… There was terrific, thrusting energy… Through Shpachenko’s fluid performance the piece was easily heard as absolute music, an exploration of how rhythms, phrases, dynamics, and excellent counterpoint all work together to make invisible structures…”

“We’re living in a time of great stylistic plurality, a time when certain older systems of composing have lost the sway they once enjoyed and new ones haven’t quite arisen to take their place. Shpachenko helped show that — there are definitely styles that she didn’t have room to feature, but no two of the works she played take the same approach to melody, harmony, and form… It was a fitting reminder that masterworks do come out of this bubble and strife, and a subtle affirmation that some things being written now may well be touchstones of the repertoire in another ninety years.”