Solo Piano 2
Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council 2006 artist of the year
Bill Brennan returns with solo piano 2
“It is a refreshing and rare experience to listen to a
performer with such a tangible respect for the quality
of each sound and the spaces that surround them.”
— Erin Donovan, Musicworks
“Brennan … is a central figure in this country’s music.”
— Geoff Chapman (Toronto Star)
Bill Brennan brings more than 20 years of experience and exploration in the national and international music scene into play in "solo piano 2", the highly anticipated follow-up to 2006’s improvised "solo piano".
Ten tracks, composed between 1990 and 2003, give a glimpse into a career that has included forays into jazz, contemporary classical, world and new music. From the first note of “Augusta,” solo piano 2’s warm and rolling opening piece, the veteran composer and performer takes listeners on a journey: written with a sense of physical space, the compositions wander the open road, take in a prairie sunset, offer moments of nostalgia, peace, calm and flickering shadows.
Recorded at the D.F. Cook Recital Hall at Memorial University and produced by Brennan, "solo piano 2" flows easily as a solid body of work, true to Brennan’s skill and musical heart. Yet it also showcases the artist’s diverse interests and world skill: three pieces are influenced by the Indonesian gamelan music of western Java; “He’s Gone Away,” the only track not composed by Brennan, is a thoughtful and wandering traditional American tune. “The Vinyl Café Waltz” ends the CD with the warm bounce of familiar friends, a nod to Brennan’s time as musical director on the beloved CBC radio program.
Named the 2006 Artist of the Year by the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council, Brennan has appeared on more than 85 recordings to date. He has recorded with the Heillig Manouevre, Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan and Vuja De. He appears on CDs by Juno-nominated Teresa Doyle, ambient-pop-rocker Andy Stochansky, guitarist Kevin Breit, torch folksinger Andrea Koziol and by fellow Newfoundlanders Sandy Morris, Patrick Boyle and Barry Canning. He has backed up such greats as Cab Calloway, Placido Domingo and Dizzy Gillespie, and has performed with the National Ballet, the Canadian Opera Company, and was a recent soloist with the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra. Brennan has written music for television (including CBC’s The Nature of Things), radio, theatre and dance. He has performed on stages across North America, Europe and Japan, can be heard on the soundtrack of Hollywood films (Antwone Fisher, directed by Denzel Washington and Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm), and has been the recipient of numerous arts grants, commissions and awards, including the Freddie Stone Memorial Award (1999).
"Solo Piano 2" received MusicNL 2008 Instrumental Album of the Year and recently received the nomination for the East Coast Music Association’s 2008 Instrumental Album of the Year.
“… a model of elegant and extremely gentle control.
This sort of textural mastery over the piano is rare.”
— Erin Best, The Current
“A lesson in subtlety and finesse where few notes
take up much space and the music plunges deep.”
— Budd Kopman, allaboutjazz.com
