Customer Reviews

Kinship

5 star:		(3)
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This album is extraordinary. Listening is its own reward, but if you ever get a chance to see this performer, RUSH! She's unbelievable in live performance. This is what happens when a brilliantly talented virtuoso with the requisite classical training expresses her interest in the wide world and shrugs off the constraints of the classical canon. This is MUSIC. Why you have to search "classical" in order to get it to come up, I don't know (are you listening, Amazonees?). This is as vital, contemporary, stimulating and far-reaching as any current CD - in any genre. If you like classical, you'll find this rewarding. if you like jazz, you'll find it inspired and highly individual. And if you like "world" (that dubious genre; see what the liner notes say about that!) then you'll find all the exoticism and unique sounds/ethnic strains you want. This is music that moves you, fills your soul and makes you smarter too. The playing is beautiful; her taste in composers (and their quality) is incomparable. You won't have anything else like it in your collection, and it will give you listening pleasure for a long, long time.

The pieces Miss Beiser has chosen for this disc are really wonderful! I understand that she has been performing these pieces around the world for years, and has finally recorded them. In Kebyar Maya, I wonder how she was able to make all those different sounds with just the cello. It sounds like there are many different instruments playing, not just cello. I wish they would put the cover picture up on the site - it's a photo of Maya in a yoga position (I think it's called the Ohm, legs crossed, hands palms together), with rays coming out from her hands. It's pretty cool.

I have heard Ms. Beiser play some of these pieces before in her extraordinary concerts, often set in accesible atmospheric settings. Now to have them on a CD is too good to be true. The playing as always is a mixture of the challenging, the sublime and the mystical. People should check out her other work and become a Beiser groupie!