Eydís Evensen is a classical and new-age pianist who finds inspiration from Iceland’s stunning nature and climate. Her mesmerizing debut album Bylur was a calming contemporary classical diary of her life to date – “So many ups and downs. All of my joy, darkness, happiness, heartbreak, and melancholia,” is how she described it – a more literal journey inspires new EP Frost; through one of her homeland’s winters. “It’s such a hard thing to go through, this darkness,” she explains, “but the rising of the sun earlier and earlier as spring nears is hugely important for Icelanders.”

Opening the EP is [...]

Markus Burger is a German-born concert pianist, composer, and educator based in Los Angeles, California. Burger is a full-time music professor at Fullerton College and a lecturer for the graduate jazz piano and composition program at San Diego State University. In August 2019, Burger spent two afternoons in Vienna, the music capital of Europe, recording in the Bösendorfer piano showroom, courtesy of Ferdinand Bräu. Burger is releasing The Vienna Sessions, a sixteen-track album from the session via Challenge Records. Burger says, “I have been a fan of Bösendorfer pianos since studying at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, Germany, [...]

A solo release gives every artist and an opportunity to display the salt within their core artistry. There is nowhere to hide within the cover of other instruments. Pianist James Fernando has crafted his first solo album, The Lonely Sailor. Stylistically Fernando leans heavily into the classical genre with an electronically altered piano. The album features eight original compositions that Fernando describes as a journey of personal growth. This is depicted by the piano at the onset of the album; the piano is pure and acoustic; as the album progress, each piece becomes more augmented until almost entirely electronic.

Opening with the [...]