At 30 years of age, pianist and composer Deanna Witkowski seems already to have crammed more than one career's worth of experience and training onto her résumé, having studied and performed with the likes of Fred Hersch, Chucho Valdés, Hilario Duran and Dave Douglas, as well fulfilling a three-year stint as music director for All Angels' Episcopal Church in New York, a semester of teaching piano in Kenya, performing at countless festivals and workshops and composing or arranging numerous pieces, including two full jazz ...
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At 30 years of age, pianist and composer Deanna Witkowski seems already to have crammed more than one career's worth of experience and training onto her résumé, having studied and performed with the likes of Fred Hersch, Chucho Valdés, Hilario Duran and Dave Douglas, as well fulfilling a three-year stint as music director for All Angels' Episcopal Church in New York, a semester of teaching piano in Kenya, performing at countless festivals and workshops and composing or arranging numerous pieces, including two full jazz masses. Her second album finds her giving voice to all of those influences on a program that, interestingly, consists primarily of originals and Cole Porter tunes, some of which are given highly adventurous arrangements within the standard piano trio or quartet (with tenor saxophone) context. Witkowski's playing is consistently thrilling, and her musical imagination seems boundless -- her take on the Porter standard "All Through the Night" is breathtaking in its disregard for conventional harmonic boundaries; her own "Wide Open Window" sounds like a blues, except for the strange chord progression and 3/4 time signature. On "Sanctus," an original sacred jazz composition that closes the album, her singing voice is not quite as well controlled as her playing, but it's a lovely piece nonetheless. Recommended. ~ Rick Anderson, Rovi
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Add this copy of Wide Open Window to cart. $9.49, very good condition, Sold by Wonder Book - Member ABAA/ILAB rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Frederick, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2003 by Khaeon.
