Soloing is the most intimate and confronting moment for any musical artist, a moment when they are naked before the audience. You perform as a soloist when you no longer want to share your creative intimacy with other instruments. There is no longer a railing; one must dance on the edge of the precipice. It is a way of handing oneself over to one's audience in an open act of outing, liberating oneself to dig into the material one is made of. In short, one does it without pretence and for as long as one sees fit, taking the listener on a journey outside and inside oneself.
Tania Giannouli is classically trained, but her pianism is open to both the melodic and amelodic exploration of her instrument, an openness that is first and foremost intellectual, then technical, where technique enables the articulation of sound universes, alternately encompassing mystery, pathos, elegance, songwriting, fire and passion in a constant play of restlessness that is the essence pervading all listening. That 'restlessness' is the defining character of SOLO, an album that moves from states of grace to moments of dynamic power without ever being predictable or leaving the listener stranded.
SOLO, Tania's fifth album, consists of twenty-four pieces of music over a seventy-minute running time. Listen close, and you will discover with great pleasure how much of the inner world there is in these notes and how much of that world is also our own. You will recognise how much emotional sensitivity there is in these compositions, how many universes alternate, how many planets orbit between these notes, and how many languages and dialects play within an infinite vocabulary of unfiltered emotion.