Customer Reviews

Blue Dream

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Blue Dream" is Fiona Joy Hawkins' anxiously-anticipated new release. Recorded and produced by Will Ackerman at his Imaginary Road Studios and performed on the studio's legendary Steinway B grand piano, Hawkins is supported by a dizzying array of musical talent. I love her previous two albums, "Ice" and "Angel Above My Piano," but "Blue Dream" is stunning. Calling the musical style "World Fusion Piano," the music ranges from quiet and dreamy piano to full orchestrations. Instrumentation includes Didjeribone, a variety of percussion instruments, flugel horn, mandolin, voices, and many conventional instruments as well. Many of the tracks have vocals, but most are wordless. Those with lyrics are sung in either Gaelic or Luganda (from Uganda). There is a total of twenty-two tracks, but the longer pieces are connected by "Interludes" and other shorter pieces, creating a single (68-minute) suite of music. Hawkins says: "'Blue Dream' is autobiographical and the most personal piece of music I have yet written." Quoting Will Ackerman: "'Blue Dream' began as the most ambitious project of my entire career and resulted in one of the most remarkable collaborations this genre has ever known." This is a powerful statement coming from the founder of Windham Hill, who has worked with many of the world's finest musicians and composers over the past thirty-five years. 2008 has been an incredible year for new music, but I would expect "Blue Dream" to top many music charts and "Favorites" lists for the year; it will certainly be on mine!

"Blue Dream" has no weak points at all. It begins with "Freedom," a prelude for voice (Noah Wilding) and piano that sets the tone of the album - very fluid, ethereal, and soft-spoken. "Feeling Sunshine" reflects Hawkins' Australian heritage with the sound of Didjeribone (an adaptation of the traditional Didgeridoo). One of the more energetic pieces on the album, it exudes fun and happiness. "From the Outside" is a beautifully flowing ensemble piece that includes piano, vocals, English horn, and acoustic stringed instruments. Since this album is autobiographical, it seems logical that themes from some of Hawkins' best-known pieces would flow in and out of the music. Bits of "Flight of the Albatross" are discernible in this piece and "Sapphire Interlude," which follows. "Standing Up" is much darker and more intensely emotional. Some passages are solo piano and others are more orchestrated - a knockout! The title track is breathtaking in its simplicity and emotional depth - piano, cello, and keyboard are achingly beautiful. Irish folk-singer Luka Bloom appears on "Contemplating," blending haunting vocals with Noah Wilding. "Samite's Interlude" features Samite Mulondo in a piece of African origin and influence. "The Void" is more classical in styling, with piano, cello, and keyboard - very still yet intense. "Turquoise Interlude" was composed by Philip Aaberg, one of my all-time favorite artists - very ambient and floating. Hawkins is also a visual artist, so "Prelude to a Painting" reflects that part of her life with a gentle duet for piano and acoustic guitar (Ackerman). "Somewhere" brings the dream to an end very quietly and gently with piano, cello, keyboard and didgeridoo. What an incredible musical experience this album is!!! I give it my highest recommendation!

I listened to this beautiful album frequently while I was at sea sailing around South America. It brought me both peace and comfort... as well as depth and profound inspiration. BLUE DREAM is a 70-minute suite of piano music written by Australia's Fiona Joy Hawkins and produced by Grammy Award-winning artist and founder of Windham Hill Records, Will Ackerman. His credentials alone should have you hitting the buy button. Recorded at Imaginary Road Studios on a Steinway B featuring special guest Luka Bloom, the artist's musical style is described as "World Fusion Piano" and it is truly alluring and captivating. The mood on BLUE DREAM ranges from vibrant to sensual to haunting... Hawkins' stellar musical vision on this project is worthy of great praise. She wowed us with her 2007 release ICE - Piano Slightly Chilled, and with BLUE DREAM Fiona Joy Hawkins enters the realm of masterful. The most compelling thing about this project is its almost gravity-defying continuity as it moves through 22 tracks, all of them with unique ideas and styles, yet all blending flawlessly. BLUE DREAM is aptly titled and highly recommended for your personal Time Outs.

Wow. This disc's sleeve has so many splashy things on it, such as "Produced by Grammy Award Winner Will Ackerman" and "Guest Performance by Luka Bloom" to gushing quotes from T-Bone Wolk and Bob Ludwig that you get the feeling you should really, really love it before hearing a note. So why, then, is it so damn ho-hum? Ah, maybe because Hawkins is another in a long line of pianists who crank out faceless albums in which to listen while you do other things, like sit in a dentist's office or work the Sunday crossword puzzle. Listeners are also told that this is "WORLD FUSION PIANO." That doesn't really mean anything other than Hawkins is employing other artists to throw some "non-traditional" sounds into her mix. No, this isn't Richard Clayderman, but it's about as captivating. And at 22 tracks it's nothing short of ego overkill. Definitely for a certain type of audience. Could possibly be good to put your newborn babies to sleep at night.

I came across this artist thanks to my aunt and after having listened to a few samples of each CD I got hooked on her music and bought 2 CDs, Blue Dream and Portrait of a Waterfall.

Her music in this album is so relaxing and I enjoy listening to it very frequently, whether at work or at home, or while doing my studies.

Blue Dream was produced by Grammy Award-winning artist Will Ackerman and he reviews this album as "unique and one he is as proud of as anything he's ever worked on in his 35 year career of Grammy Awards and gold and platinum records", and it truly is an amazing musical experience.

World fusion piano at its best.

It's a long way from Australia to Vermont - about 10,000 miles to be more precise, but the journey was worth it for pianist/composer Fiona Joy Hawkins to have her album recorded and produced by the legendary Windham Hill Records founder Will Ackerman. As it turned out, the experience was equally rewarding for him as well. Her music, which has been described as "transcultural instrumental," incorporates elements of classical, jazz, new age, and world music. It is a combination that listeners obviously find appealing as she has over 43 Awards and nominations across 9 countries. In fact this album "Blue Dream" achieved the highest ranking in the history of the NAR International Radio Charts and won the ZMR Album of the Year, Best Piano Album, and Best Contemporary Instrumental Album awards.

The CD extends well over an hour and its 22 tracks are interestingly arranged between full length songs and shorter "interludes," some only a minute or two and serve as an aural sorbet between the courses. However, while the album is divided as just described, it is actually created as a continuous musical flow and crystallizes beautifully as one complete body of work. Listening to it from beginning to end takes the listener on a journey, somewhat like a film score. Within this flow, the listener will find an incredible diversity of instruments, influences, and themes, sometimes in the context of one composition, all centered around Fiona's elegant and expressive piano playing. . There is a lot of magic here in the way all the various, and sometimes unlikely, combination of elements and musicians intertwine to weave a dream you won't want to wake up from.

The piano is a divine instrument to play or to simply listen while others perform. I am certain many readers like myself have also had the opportunity to play the piano as younger adults either willingly or unwillingly under the guidance of their parents, which ended with varying degrees of success. It seems that few instruments can compare to a piano for personally illustrating the emotion and feeling of what an artist wants to share with another.

Fiona Joy Hawkins is the noteworthy artist I would like to highlight today achieving unbridled success playing the piano, reaching the number 1 spot in World New Age radio charts across 9 countries, achieving the Best Piano Album in the NAR lifestyle music awards in 2006, and winning the classical / jazz category in the Music OZ Awards for 2008. Accomplishments even her parents never would have dreamed possible.

Fiona Joy Hawkins has also received multiple nominations as finalist in classical jazz categories in 2007 and 2009 in multiple genres, among her respectable achievements as an Australian born composer and pianist. Her most recent 2008 Blue Dream album on the Little Hartley Music label, described as world fusion piano, puts the listener into a reflective relaxed state with many refined variations ranging from the poignant quiet moments of thought, to moments with varying rhythms, styles and many orchestration phases in the 22 song album which merge together skillfully.

While already widely recognized, she hopes this album will break into international markets. One can consider the 22 songs contained in this album as chapters in a book, that after reading each chapter, the next phase of this story becomes more revealing when finishing all verses while working your way towards the final chapter. My favorite track 9 blends powerful, yet soft vocals, only to crescendo into a moving inspirational piece, blending into the next novel chapter.

All song chapters and illustrations in this book will hold your interest by preventing you from putting the book down, and my favorite track 9 blends powerful, yet soft vocals, only to crescendo into a moving inspirational piece, blending into the next novel chapter. Farther in the storyline, Track 12 opens with a classic piano solo interlude as accompanying vocals add definition, and as the plot thickens, additional momentum begins to increase the readers awareness of a chance encounter, as additional instrumentals and rhythms divulge increasing amounts of dialog of this narrative.

Recorded and produced by Grammy Award winner Will Ackerman, plus an addition of many other talented musicians to their credit, who solo and accompany Fiona Joy Hawkins, influence the beauty and refinement of the album, without ever exceeding the award winning pianist intentions and the message she masterfully portrays with the 88 ebony and ivory keys provided for her on a Steinway concert piano. In addition to her professional career as a pianist, Fiona Joy Hawkins is also a painter with her own online art gallery, where paintings can be purchased, along with her 4 available CDs.

And the recording is mine! In truth, maybe this is something of a crank review--I have an original cassette of my own piano playing from 1980, from my home, from when I was 16, that I did with a portable cassette recorder, and almost every track on this cd is something that is straight from that cassette. I guess I missed my calling, with performing "New Age" music, and making some sort of living with my music. And though I played music with the same notes, I have to admit the songs are really quite boring, (yes, I am, in effect, trashing my own piano playing), and, if you listen even to many of the snippets on Amazon, you will hear much repetition. In the mid-1980's I loaned a tape of my piano playing to a "friend" who then took it and gave it to someone in Nashville, without telling me ahead of time, that he would do so. I never saw the tape again. I am sorry for the advocates of this cd, but I hear myself as a 16 year-old on this cd, in the basement with my vertical, Grinnell Bros piano, playing my heart out, only to hear the exact same music, 31 years later, rerecorded by some stranger, as though it were stolen from my cassette tape. For what it is worth, I still have a tape of many of these same piano tunes. The music business is cutthroat; I believe that it is similar to intellectual property rights--unless you have a lot of money, and time, and know the right people, you might not have a chance to prove someone stole your idea. But as much as it pains me that someone has profited from something identical to what I did 30 years ago, I have some vindication with the ironic realization that the music that I played (and of which I have a record), that is reproduced here, is really mediocre!! If I want to listen to melba toast droning piano playing, I can play it myself! (!)

Two selections were off the mark. Other than that, this is an excellent CD of piano and mixture of ambient and orchestral sounds.