MICHAEL TORKE (b.1961): Miami Grands for 10 Pianos.

Description: Fans of Torke's brand of minimal-ish, popular-idiom-ish, rhythmically insistent style will find much to enjoy here. The twelve pieces that make up the composition are intended to evoke twelve locations around Miami at successive times of day. Torke's idiom is tonal, with each piece based on a melody presented in a kind of canon with an augmented, and sometimes also a diminished, version of itself. Some movements have rather Baroque-sounding melodic material, while others have the character of popular ballads, so between the application of Baroque contrapuntal devices and the easy-going harmony and strong rhythmic beat, the overall effect is an appealing, undemanding album with a high entertainment quotient, brash and brightly lit, colorful and relentlessly active, like the city it portrays. In case you wonder what ten pianos sound like, the answer is; a very, very large pianola, with some spatial capabilities. Miami Piano Circle; Georgi Danchev (conductor).