Composer: Livia Teodorescu-Ciocănea
Performer: Tamara Smolyar, Livia Teodorescu-Ciocănea
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Toccata
Catalogue: TOCC0448
Release: 2019
Size: 598 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Endeavour Bells (Fantasy for Piano Solo)
02. Nocturniana (Fantasy After Chopin’s Op. 27 No. 2)
Sonatina for solo piano
03. I. Lento
04. II. Con moto
Sonatina buffa: Homage to Charlie Chaplin for piano duet
05. I. Larghetto. Allegro semplice
06. II. Lento rubato
07. III. Più mosso
08. Calypso (Fantasy for Piano Solo)
Piano Concerto No. 2, Lebenskraft, arranged for two pianos
09. I. Vivo
10. II. Adagio
11. III. Con spirito
Piano music forms a large part of the output of the Romanian composer Livia Teodorescu-Ciocănea (born 1959), as you would expect of someone who has been playing the instrument since she was four. This first album of her music reveals a latter-day Impressionist, sensitive to half-light and petal-delicate tonal colour – but she can also generate powerful surges of energy, and her musical portrait of Charlie Chaplin testifies to an impish sense of humour.
Tamara Smolyar, born in Kiev, began her formal piano lessons at the age of four, gave her first public performance at seven and enjoyed a glittering early career in the Soviet Union. From 1994 to 2018 she was a Senior Lecturer in Music Performance, Coordinator of Piano, at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music at Monash University, Melbourne. She is currently a member of the piano staff at the Australian Guild of Music, Mentone Girls Grammar School and the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne.
Livia Teodorescu-Ciocanea, born in Galati, eastern Romania, in 1959, studied piano at the Porumbescu Conservatoire (now the National University of Music) in Bucharest in 1977 and graduated in 1981 with a Bachelor degree in Composition. In 1995 she was appointed assistant professor at the National University of Music in Bucharest, teaching form and analysis and orchestration. In 1997 she became a lecturer, and between 2004 and 2015 she worked as an Associate Professor in composition, form and analysis. In 2015 she was appointed Professor of Composition at the same institution.