PHOENIX | TEXTURA

"Pianist Stewart Goodyear is a formidable talent. Not only does the Toronto-based, multi-Juno Award nominee possess the technical facility to handle the most conceivably difficult material, he's a composer of distinction too. On this solo piano release, Goodyear performs two pieces by Debussy, contemporary works by Jennifer Higdon and Anthony Davis, and two of his own compositions, Congotay and Panorama. Topping it off is a splendid treatment of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. The album title and cover imagery, by the way, stem from the project having risen from the soundworld, gestures, and traditions of Franz Liszt, whose output encompassed original works and piano transcriptions of pieces by other composers.

Goodyear's appetite ranges widely, the pianist having issued recordings of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Rachmaninov, and Ravel. His recording of his own transcription of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker (Complete Ballet) was honoured as one of the best classical music recordings of 2015 by The New York Times. It hardly surprises that he would be up to the many challenges presented by the seven pieces on Phoenix.”