Gabriela Montero

Hey guys/girls...I just discovered this lady while listening to an NPR interview recently, and she's something else. She's a classical pianist, a virtuoso, but her real strength is improvising, and boy, can she do it. Of course, improv is a lost art among classically trained musicians, but as we know, all of the maestros, from Bach to Beethoven, could improvise endlessly. Gabriela must have been someone really heavy in a past life, cause her improvisations are superb. In the interview, Robert Siegal gave her a theme to improv on, and I was astonished at the depth of her playing...I was not expecting it to be so profoundly deep and moving, as well as technically complex.
Her CD, "Bach and Beyond," is a set of improvs on Bach themes, and it really is beautiful; her improvs have the structure of carefully written pieces, but there's also a lot of emotional depth as well. She started at the age of 7 months, when her grandma put a toy piano in her crib; she says in the liner notes: "Sometimes it feels as though I'm some kind of antenna connecting into a universe of consciousness. The music just flows like water. It's slightly crazy in a way-I really don't know where it comes from, but it seems truly endless."
I recommend this CD to anybody, this woman is truly a phenomenon...best...Hstick

myspace.com/microstick

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Dude, we gotta get your clock fixed. I mean that in the best
possible way. :)

If you are running Windows and you see the time in the lower-
right corner of the screen (on the task bar), double-click the
time, and the calendar should pop up (otherwise go to Control
Panel -> Date & Time). Then set the date.

-Carl

At 06:30 AM 1/3/2007, you wrote:
> Hey guys/girls...I just discovered this lady while listening to an
>NPR interview recently, and she's something else. She's a classical
>pianist, a virtuoso, but her real strength is improvising, and boy,
>can she do it. Of course, improv is a lost art among classically
>trained musicians, but as we know, all of the maestros, from Bach to
>Beethoven, could improvise endlessly. Gabriela must have been someone
>really heavy in a past life, cause her improvisations are superb. In
>the interview, Robert Siegal gave her a theme to improv on, and I was
>astonished at the depth of her playing...I was not expecting it to be
>so profoundly deep and moving, as well as technically complex.
> Her CD, "Bach and Beyond," is a set of improvs on Bach themes, and
>it really is beautiful; her improvs have the structure of carefully
>written pieces, but there's also a lot of emotional depth as well. She
>started at the age of 7 months, when her grandma put a toy piano in
>her crib; she says in the liner notes: "Sometimes it feels as though
>I'm some kind of antenna connecting into a universe of consciousness.
>The music just flows like water. It's slightly crazy in a way-I really
>don't know where it comes from, but it seems truly endless."
> I recommend this CD to anybody, this woman is truly a
>phenomenon...best...Hstick
>
>myspace.com/microstick

> Her CD, "Bach and Beyond," is a set of improvs on Bach themes,

Definitely one of the best of these I've heard (also
Jacob Loussier and John Bayless).

-Carl