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Alister Spence: Imagine Meeting You Here
by Doug Hall
Imagine Meeting You Here (Alister Spence Music, 2019) is the release by Alister Spence, a recognized leader in Australia's new music directive and one of his country's most original and distinctive jazz pianists and composers of orchestral pieces. Certainly there is a reflection in the title of this release that is his biographical journey and meeting in musical imagination. A project that developed in 2015 when Spence was beginning a doctoral PhD in creative practice (music composition) which morphed into ...
read moreAlister Spence and Satoko Fujii Orchestra Kobe: Imagine Meeting You Here
by Dan McClenaghan
The year 2018 saw two sounds-you've-never-heard-before" collaborations between Australian composer/pianist/electronics master Alister Spence and Japanese pianist/bandleader Satoko Fujii, the duo recording Intelstat (Alister Spence Music), and Kira Kira (Libra Records) by the Fujii quartet Bright Force. These recordings were part of Fujii's one CD release per month" celebration of her sixtieth birthday year. The duo opened 2019 with the Spence-led Imagine Meeting You Here, featuring the Satoko Fujii Orchestra Kobe, one of many (it's hard to keep count) ...
read moreAlister Spence / Satoko Fujii Orchestra Kobe: Imagine Meeting You Here
by Karl Ackermann
On the heels of a monthly release year, celebrating her sixtieth birthday, Satoko Fujii takes no break as she dives into a new year. Imagine Meeting You Here is a five-part suite for Fujii's improvising Orchestra Kobe. The compositions are by pianist Alister Spence, who acts as producer and conductor of the fifteen-member ensemble. The suite premiered with Fujii's orchestra in Kobe, Nagoya and Tokyo in 2016 and was performed by the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra later that year. Orchestra Kobe ...
read moreAlister Spence: Live
by Duncan Heining
Alister Spence Trio: Live is, apparently, this Australian group's sixth recording. Sadly, the others have passed me by and pianist Alister Spence only recently crossed my CD deck in the company of Scottish saxophonist / improviser Raymond MacDonald. To be honest, much contemporary piano trio jazz--EST, Brad Mehldau, The Necks--bores me. Perhaps unfairly so but to me a lot of it sounds to me like a Michael Nyman soundtrack from some seemingly endless film that Mrs. O'Groove would have me ...
read moreAlister Spence and Myra Melford: Everything Here Is Possible
by Eyal Hareuveni
This exceptional piano duo featuring American Myra Melford and Sydney-based Australian Alister Spence, known for his local trio and an acclaimed duo with Scottish saxophonist Raymond MacDonald ; (Stepping Behind The Shadows, Rufus, 2012), was recorded during late 2012 while Melford toured Australia with her Trio M. The pianist/composers got to know each other through a mutual friend, Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii, who recorded a duo with Melford, Under The Water, Libra, 2009). This aptly-titled session ...
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