AMERICANIST | TEXTURA REVIEW

Elizabeth Newkirk: The Americanist
Bright Shiny Things

It's not uncommon for a musician to include liner notes with a recording; it is, however, unusual for one to craft a probing, academic-styled essay as pianist Elizabeth Newkirk has done for The Americanist. Her same-titled written piece brings context to the album content in identifying the myriad historical strands that helped shape the American myth and, more germane to the hour-long release, the things that connect the material she laid down in late 2020 at a private Indiana studio, Ravel's La Valse, Gershwin's An American in Paris, and William Grant Still's Africa: A Suite for Solo Piano.

While the varied programme—three interwar orchestral works transcribed for solo piano—involves a piece by a French composer and two others casting their gaze beyond US borders, all are united by specific American qualities. Ravel's creation reflects his burgeoning interest in American music, and even though Gershwin's and Still's look, respectively, to Paris and Africa for inspiration, their character remains undeniably American. The inclusion of a work by Still, sometimes called the “Dean of Afro-American composers,” is appropriate too, not just for its merit as a musical entity but for implicitly referencing the critical dimension of race in American history.