New Age Instrumental-Classical Review: Heidi Breyer-Moonlight In Empty Rooms

Release Date: January 23, 2018

Label: Independent

Website

Moonlight In Empty Rooms is Heidi Breyer’s fifth proper album. She worked exclusively with Charlie Bisharat, a superb violinist. The combination of piano and violins are not strange bedfellows. They both complement each other exquisitely, just like it was meant to be. It most certainly sounds that way to me when I hear that combination, which is often in the new age genre. 

The album is a musical tribute to her husband Alexander Volkav’s artwork. I saw a few of the pictures of his work and they are absolutely stunning. They are so lifelike and crystal clear, that you will find it hard to believe that a human being actually painted them.

Moonlight In Empty Rooms is like a river of songs moving along as nature would have it. When you see the water from far away it does not look like its moving too fast, as you get closer you can see what is really happening. This music is comparative to that. It is calm and engaging as it gently invites you in. Once you step through that door of complete envelopment in the tracks, you are now moving right along with it, up close and personal.

Like the art that Alexander creates, it is placed on a canvas of different shades and colors. Each track is a separate work of art just like her husband’s paintings. I often describe music in this fashion and honestly think the comparison is relative. Art comes in all forms and colors and so does music. You, the listener, are the open canvas ready for the music to create something within your heart, mind, and soul. I think Heidi accomplishes that with this gorgeous music. It comes presented with strong musicianship and accomplished production values.

Moonlight In Empty Rooms sets the standard at a high level for instrumental new age and classical recordings. This is as good as it gets.

5/5 Stars

Keith “MuzikMan” Hannaleck

March 9, 2018

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Review Provided By New Age Music Reviews

Tracks:
01. Unfinished Conversation
02. Autumn Snowfall
03. Autumn in Bruges
04. Christian's Workshop
05. Moonlight in Empty Rooms
06. Eastertide
07. Rainy Day
08. The Sound and the Fury
09. Winter Rose
10. Half Hour Before Spring
11. Faith
12. End of Summer
 

New Age Instrumental Review: Heidi Breyer-Letters From Far Away

Release Date: 2015

Label: Indie

Website

Heidi Breyer’s first encounter with music happened when she was a mere two years old. There, dancing in a paper flower skirt, she and harmony became one. In her newest two CD set, Letters From Far Away you can still see the little girl dancing and smile. In this unique compilation, Heidi has taken two sets of songs and breathed both instrumental and piano solo sound into them. Each set of pieces has its own flavor depending on the mood of the listener. An award winning artist for many of her past works; this is Heidi’s first solo album.

The first piece on the album is “All the Good Things.” Both the instrumental and piano solo versions hold a light that shines deep into the soul of the artist. Music and beauty are one with each unwinding note. The instrumental version holds elegant multi-instrumentation that adds a splash of color I found especially appealing. The sorrowful sighs of string instruments take the listener by the hand and lead them out onto the dance floor to sink into the essence of the music.

“Letters from Far Away” made me think of hidden trunks and discoveries of love affairs long past. Of finding things out about loved ones and realizing they too had lives before us. Both versions of this piece are poignant, with the solo piano version all the more stark for lack of busy instruments in the background. 

“Small Café” was reminiscent of sidewalk cafes where a walk was an adventure and the journey all the more important for the destination at hand. The solo piano version has a peculiar audio thunk at the onset, but it did not detract from my enjoyment of the album. In fact, I have been playing it nonstop since I received it. Think Paris and sipping a coffee or perhaps a walk to an ice cream shop where the seating is outdoors. The physical world and music meet, forever intwined.

Heidi Breyer has given us much to think about in this dual CD experience. In the solo version of Letters From Far Away you get a crisp listen to piano solos with no distraction. This lineup is more stark and clean and provides an excellent stage to set the scene for your mind’s eye. The instrumental portion is the glittering highlight that takes the extra step and illuminates the world. It is the cursive in writing, the curl in your hair and the sweetness as the hot chocolate (or as this is summer- cold mocha) goes down.

4/5 Stars

Key Tracks: All the Good Things, Letters From Far Away, Small Cafe

Tracks: 
01. All the Good Things (Solo)
02. Small Cafe (Solo)
03. 1960 (Solo)
04. First Impressions (Solo)   
05. Old Photograph (Solo)
06. Touchstone (Solo)
07. Letters from Far Away (Solo)
08. Welton (Solo)
09. Scarborough Fair (Solo)
10. No Man Is an Island (Solo)
11. Starry Pond (Solo)
12. All the Good Things (Instrumental)
13. Small Cafe (Instrumental)
14. 1960 (Instrumental)
15. First Impressions (Instrumental)
16. Old Photograph (Instrumental)
17. Touchstone (Instrumental)
18. Letters from Far Away (Instrumental)
19. Welton (Instrumental)
20. Scarborough Fair (Instrumental)
21. No Man Is an Island (Instrumental)
22. Starry Pond (Instrumental)
 

DanaWright, Sr. Staff Writer

June 14, 2015

Review Provided By New Age Music Reviews

Pianist and Composer Heidi Breyer Releases A Breathtaking New Album “Letters From Far Away” Featuring Legendary Will Ackerman

“The music is at once technically breathtaking and emotionally intimate. A rare and wonderful combination.” - Will Ackerman

Frenchtown, NJ - Pianist and composer Heidi Breyer has released a breathtaking new album of unparalleled beauty titled “Letters From Far Away.” The new release is a double solo and piano instrumental album and Heidi’s debut production alongside legendary Will Ackerman (Founder Windham Hill Records) and Tom Eaton. The album was recorded, mixed and mastered at Imaginary Road Studios in Vermont and Studio Sound in LA.

Says Heidi, “ 'Letters From Far Away' is my musical interpretation of a handful of experiences in the story of one couple, each from different countries, who met in 1960 and after 5 years apart, against all odds, walked the rest of their lives together. It is also about love in all it's forms, how love is the common denominator that transcends time and links the generations over the course of decades. It is the one thing that connects us all.”

Winner of ZMR Best Instrumental piano Album 2012, Nominated ZMR Best Holiday Album 2011, Winner of ZMR Best Instrumental Piano Album 2010 and Best New Artist 2010, Heidi Breyer has four albums to her credit – Winter Light 2009, Another Place and Time 2010, Beyond The Turning 2012, Letters From Far Away 2015. She has performed on stages worldwide and opened the first ever live ZMR Awards show performing with Premik Russell-Tubbs (Sting), Jill Haley and Michael Ronstadt. Her music has been featured on many compilations including the Grammy Nominated Album for Best Spoken Word, “The Storm King” an Auto Biographical Narration by the late Pete Seeger, Produced by Jeff Haynes, also The Gathering (West River Records), Many Miles Music (Seattle based label) and Sounds of The Circle by Suzanne Doucet. British born and conservatory educated at Trinity College of Music in London, Heidi Breyer now resides in the artistic community of Frenchtown, NJ, an inspiring setting where she composes her music, prepares for her multi-media concerts, teaches and manages the business of world-renowned Russian painter, Alexander Volkov.

“Heidi Breyer continues to amaze with her evolution as a composer and as a performer. The range of styles represented in Letters From Far Away is considerable, but like the outer planets in our solar system, these are held together by the gravity and persuasion of Breyer's Artistic Voice.” - Will Ackerman, Grammy winning Guitarist, Producer, Imaginary Road Studios and founder of Windham Hill Records.

And now, in 2015, Heidi has released her most stunning achievement to date, the new album “Letters From Far Away”! Says Heidi, “I wrote the entire collection with the intention of releasing my first piano solo project. But in the very first session the opportunity for some major counter-melody from other specific instruments was revealing itself to me. The main instrumental voices that I was imagining were cello, violin, guitar and English Horn, mostly because I have worked with these sounds before and have an understanding of their capacity for expression within my music. Clarinet was non-negotiable on Small Cafe. Every time I hear that instrument it propels me back in time and for that piece as with all others, it was the only option. Then saxophone, french horn and bass guitar...all came very naturally...

“Will Ackerman has amazing perceptual awareness. He has mentored me for several years now, both in regard to my music and helping me to further discover and push my own development as an artist. He knows when to step back and when to guide. As this project progressed he was clearly observing my need for specifics...not just instrumentally but also melodically, harmonically and rhythmically and yet he also knew when to bring forth his knowledge and experience for the better. Along with Tom Eaton's own depth of production experience, I think we made a pretty good team! All the session players I work with are in their own right top-shelf artists. Many of them are on all of my albums. They really listened, understood and interpreted accurately and delivered, in my opinion, flawlessly. The list of players I worked with (and hope to again) include but are not limited to Eugene Friesen, Jill Haley, Charlie Bisharat, Gus Sebring, Mark Schulman, Will Ackerman.”

Here's what's being said about Heidi Breyer's “Letters From Far Away”:

“ 'Letters From Far Away' is a love story that began more than five decades ago across the briny Atlantic. For the world, it was a time of new beginnings. For the lovers it was the birth of something so inexplicable that neither poets with their rhymes, nor philosophers with their thoughts could define it. Until now. It would take extraordinary music to explain it. Enter pianist Heidi Breyer. She takes on the monumental task of telling a story that does not appear in known fairytales, but in the chronicles of the heart. Using her incredible composition skills, she offers not one, but two eleven-track disks of solo piano and its companion instrumental pieces. She takes on the role of bard, storyteller, musician, and singer – a modern day Scheherazade. The contemporary music is twenty-two glimpses into the history of lovers that came from two different worlds and whose devotion was strong enough and endured long enough to build a single world of love. Let us meet the lovers.” - RJ Lannen, Zone Music Reporter

“A new release by Heidi Breyer is always worth waiting for, but this time she has out done herself and her deeply meaningful creation of Letters from far Away, will be regarded by her fans and the followers of piano based music, as real raising of the musical bar, her many listeners, of which I urge you to be one of, will be deeply moved for an eternity by this incredible release.” - Steve Sheppard, OWMR

“Heidi Breyer's 'Letters From Far Away' is an amazing collection of lovely piano based music. I particularly loved the idea of having a double CD set- One with Solo Piano versions and the other with subtle arrangements. Being a musician I could see the tremendous amount of attention to detail that has gone into the writing and performance. As a pure listener, I loved the option to chose which CD to listen to based on my mood. Overall a fantastic musical experience and I wish Heidi all the best for this wonderful work.” - Ricky Kej, Grammy Winner Producer, 2015 of New Age Album of the year, (Winds of Samsara)

“Heidi has provided us with a treasure trove of beautiful recorded music, as well as an upcoming fifth CD to look forward to. Heidi Breyer is a truly remarkable instrumentalist and composer whose expressive and melodic range is impressive, as is her emotionally evocative touch on the keyboard. Letters From Far Away is musical storytelling at its best and illuminates the talents of a rising star in the piano world. - Michael Diamond, Music and Media Focus.”

“Heidi's music is the perfect synthesis of academia and passion. This is music informed by years of study and a rich life. The music is at once technically breathtaking and emotionally intimate. A rare and wonderful combination.” - Will Ackerman

In closing Heidi has this to impart, “Music is an elixir for life, love, catharsism and general well being. Always has been and always will be... My music is written to nourish and combat the impact of today's crazy, restless world, but it is not music for meditation relaxation...I do not strive to help empty the mind through musical meditation. There is a lot of great New Age Music that already does this successfully. I present an alternative perspective, deliver a brief but thoughtful departure to another life imagined through the music, and bring the listener back through the same escape route to reality, feeling a refreshed and grounded in their real lives. I believe the New Age music genre is breaking through to a new era at the very moment it is needed. We know that certain types of music are a part of most peoples daily balancing act. But in addition, we are observing that our human psyche is evolving and we are using our core (our soul, our intuition) to guide us more and more and not just our 5 known senses (that tell us the immediate things)...I believe our instinctive leaning toward New Age music contributes to that 'beacon'. It is music for our lifestyles. It is one of the facets of the balancing act that we will become more and more reliant upon, almost medicinally. I for one, know that I am someone who can help in that regard. So the message is...check out New Age Music. Check out all of my music and see how it can truly help you.”

To purchase:
For Albums - http://heidibreyer.com/?page_id=237
For Songs and Albums - http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/heidibreyer2

For more information: http://heidibreyer.com

Press inquiries: Glass Onyon PR, PH: 828-350-8158, glassonyonpr@gmail.com