enthusiastic REVIEWS for paleface
recorded by trio accento on albany records

CINEMUSICAL WEBSITE – 2/11/20 (Click to read full review of the CD)

By Steven A. Kenney - www.sakennedymusic.com

A Quintet of Trios 

Extant Blues is a collection of new music for piano trio by five California-based composers.  The Trio Accento has chosen these works for their exploration of a common parallel to popular music styles filtered through the unique lenses of each of the composer’s represented here.

Russell Steinberg’s Paleface found its inspiration in the pop art of Jerry Kearns who explores hero myths in the work chosen here (nicely reprinted in the booklet notes!).  Each movement tackles one aspect of these American heroes beginning with the “Wild West” with its advanced contemporary techniques for piano to add special effects and folkish, Americana references (and a host of quotations in an Ives-ian approach).  It is interesting to hear the piano shift from a classical to more saloon hall style too.  The “Action Hero” is an exciting scherzo taking its inspiration from Hollywood and secret agent and superhero music.  It even has a little surprise for listeners when kazoos appear.  It is a more cerebral and intense section.  The final movement, “Into the Night” is a contemplation of what a “hero” is in the shadow of historical events such as 9-11.  The music references hymn-like music in a reflective opening that moves into touches of pop gospel before dying away, in a way, echoing the earlier 19th-century hymnody of the opening movement.  With these various musical ideas, what really stands out is that one can approach this music with this sometimes humorous quality, but it as it plays out, there is an often darker, sardonic quality that makes the listener further reflect on these images and expectations of what these symbols really mean and how they impact the culture.

FANFARE MAGAZINE - @1/24/20

By Colin Clarke

A welcome and vibrant disc exploring new music for piano trio and piano quartet.

Both artwork (by “psychological pop” artist Jerry Kearns) and video (Carlton Bright) are elements of Russell Steinberg’s Paleface. The artwork is reproduced in the booklet. An exploration of the American hero myth, one might initially see correlations with the aesthetic of Michael Daugherty, but Steinberg’s music goes deeper while maintaining a descriptive surface. The idea of the American hero, posits the composer, operates on many levels of contemporary society. Even Jesus, not particularly American last time I looked (although who knows Trump might requisition him at some point) “plays a lurking role”. From galloping cowboys to folksongs and hymns, film noir and pulp fiction, Paleface explores them all. The three movements are: “Wild West”; “Action Hero”; “Into Night,” with the final movement exploring icons as ghosts. Steinberg uses extended piano techniques in “Wild West”: strumming of the strings, tapping the steel bars and so on. It all coheres beautifully; and it is fun, too. The central panel is a scherzo that includes a brief part for kazoo (the arrival of which comes as something of a surprise if you haven’t read the booklet notes in advance). It is all great fun, a depiction of superheroes, secret agents and cartoon chases. Easy to overlook the tightness of the performance then, superbly done here. The work ends with an Adagio, reflecting that depth I referred to earlier. Our superheroes are now, in the words of the composer, thrust “into the night of today’s post 9-11 world”. A gospel anthem surfaces, itself eventually transformed into a ghost. A fabulous work, way more profound than I first expected on reading the booklet notes.

All of this is caught in a bright, open recording with realistic perspective. A most refreshing release. 

Five stars: A welcome and vibrant disc exploring new music for piano trio and piano quartet

THE ART MUSIC LOUNGE – 1/31/20 (Click to read full review of the CD)

By Lynn René Bayley

California-based Trio Accento consists of violinist Limor Toren Immerman, cellist Garik Terzian and pianist Nora Chiang Wrobel. The CD booklet contains biographical information on each of them individually, but there is no information on how long they have been working as a unit. They do, however, tend to specialize in contemporary music, and this is the focus of this CD.

Russell Steinberg, a composer whose works Trio Accento has played in live concerto, contributes Paleface: Piano Trio (with kazoos), surely one of the strangest pieces on the album. The galloping of horses is simulated in the opening before the music hurtles into its theme-and-development sections; a bit of hoedown fiddle is heard, then Western barroom piano. The violin plays, very high and on the edge of the strings, a bit of Home on the Range, then, lower down in its range, Calling in the Sheep. I really enjoyed this piece tremendously, as it had not only energy but imagination and, yes, a sense of humor, all of which appealed to me. There’s not a dull moment in this opening movement; you feel completely engaged in the composer’s quick wit from start to finish. There’s even a passage where it almost sounds as if the violinist’s strings are snapping, calling for the player to make quick upward glissandi to simulate that effect.

In the second movement we finally hear the kazoos, and even knowing they were coming they made me laugh. This movement features a fast, almost choppy ostinato beat propelled by the piano, but more importantly is Steinberg’s ever-quick wit and his ability to blend in elements of jazz (very well executed by the trio, by the way) and, despite all the odd effects (and kazoos), a good sense of development. No matter what Steinberg throws into this trio, no matter how incongruous the sounds produced, everything seems to fit like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, and always there is that strong sense of humor.

Surprisingly, the third movement starts off with somber, slow chords on the piano, but the strings play weird tremolos that bob in and out of the music; then the pianist plays the inside strings of her instrument. This movement, for some reason, sounds much more serious and, unlike the other two, has more of a stop-and-go movement, yet one can tell that it’s by the same composer. Eventually, the violin plays a rather sad and plaintive “Western” sort of theme, joined later by the cello. The liner notes explain that the “Western” heroes of the first movement and the “pulp fiction” heroes of the second are, here, “struggling in the night to cohere and make sense of a world they no longer can possibly describe. They ultimately all go to church and fade away to a ghost gospel choir.” A weird piece!

Concert Review: Neave Trio – ‘From America to the Moon’ (NYC Jan 5, 2018) (Click to read full review of the concert)

Jon Sobel  January 8, 2018 

The Neave Trio has made a specialty of American music (see my review of their American Momentsalbum), and they continued the theme on a bone-chilling New York City evening the other day. Their “From America to the Moon” program, consisting of Leonard Bernstein’s youthful Piano Trio and new works from Russell Steinberg and Robert Paterson, heated things up with electric energy and easy virtuosity.

We often speak of music evoking visual images, but Russell Steinberg made the idea manifest with the world premiere of “Paleface,” inspired by paintings by Jerry Kearns that combine Jesus imagery with American myth and kitsch in startling ways. Accompanied by Amanda Tiller’s video pans and zooms of these paintings, the Neave Trio brought Steinberg’s wild and inventive score to life.

I particularly enjoyed the first movements’ clever collage of galloping Wild West tropes and quotes from musical Americana. The inky loveliness of the closing movement encompassed warm melodies and rich harmonies that showed off the composer’s lyrical gifts. The middle movement displayed a mastery of compositional technique dressed up with playful moments and jazzy noir-esque motifs (“Pink Panther,” anyone?), though it shaded after awhile into what felt to me like generic-sounding modernism.