The Stone People
Lisa Moore (piano and voice)
*** *** ***
No one inhabits a Steinway quite like Australian pianist Lisa Moore, which is probably why so many modern composers have invited her to interpret their music. Known for her “beautiful and impassioned” approach, as the New York Times described one of her performances, Moore brings a fully charged sense of rhythm, mysticism and adventure to The Stone People. It follows in the footsteps of Moore’s three-part series of acclaimed EPs for the label — Seven (2009), Lightning Slingers and Dead Ringers (2011) and Stainless Staining (2012), as well as Which Side are you On? (2003), a collection of Frederic Rzewski works and her first full-length album on Cantaloupe Music.
As Pulitzer-winning composer and Bang on a Can co-founder David Lang reveals in the album’s liner notes, the project takes its name from the opening piece by another Pultizer winner, John Luther Adams. “John’s music is ruggedly elemental,” Lang writes, “using very restrained materials as a way of probing some of our most fundamental human truths. Who we are. Where we are. How we relate to each other. How we relate to the natural world. His pieces are stark explorations of humankind in its most elemental state, and this CD brings together, for the first time, his complete acoustic music for solo piano.”
Among other firsts, the disc includes two works for piano by Julia Wolfe (2015 Pulitzer winner), as well as newly recorded pieces by Martin Bresnick, Missy Mazzoli and Kate Moore. By turns meditative, mysterious, tumultuous and tender, The Stone People presents Lisa Moore at the height of her transformative powers.