Description

Executive Producer: Jim Mulally

The Power of the Keyboard

Yarlung board member Jim Mulally loves and supports mostly classical music. But when he hears something extraordinary in any genre his eyes light up and he grins from ear to ear. When The Power of the Keyboard first came out on CD and Jim heard Nathan at the piano and then Astral Mixtape in their otherworldly magnificence, Jim told me that audiophiles needed to hear this music. Jim generously underwrote this vinyl pressing and serves as our album’s executive producer.

Nathan Ben-Yehuda pursues a fulltime solo concert career as a classical pianist but also plays with Astral Mixtape, an innovative crossover quartet writing new works and reimagining classics from Monteverdi to Rimsky-Korsakov, and playing with ideas and thematic material from Sigur Ros to Radiohead and Four Tet.  We end this album with two tracks by Astral Mixtape.  The second side offers Goddess Gardens, including intoxicating “mixtape” snippets from Scheherazade and Vaughan Williams’ Lark Ascending, as well as more recent fare.  Seven Hellos closes the album on side two, an original composition by the four members of the quartet.  Astral Mixtape is clearly close to Nathan’s heart:

“I am part of this wonderful band of fellow classical musicians who are seeking to reimagine the conventional roles of our instruments, and applying non-classical approaches to arrangement and composition in our works. Astral Mixtape is the collaborative project most personal to me.”

Before we get to Astral Mixtape, however, Nathan’s solo piano repertoire makes a powerful statement.  Not only can Nathan handle the delicate Haydn beautifully, but also kindly agreed to play Peter Sculthorpe’s Nocturnal  for us.

Repertoire included on this vinyl pressing:

Side 1:

1. Sonata in G Major, Hob. XVI:40 (Joseph Haydn)
2. Nocturnal (Peter Sculthorpe)

Side 2:

1. Goddess Gardens (Astral Mixtape)
2. Seven Hellos (Astral Mixtape)

Enjoy!

—Bob Attiyeh, producer

The sonics in the recordings of solo piano pieces are outstanding. Nathan Ben-Yehuda is a compelling young pianist. The recording quality is also top-drawer, just as I’ve come to expect from Bob Attiyeh’s recordings.

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