Little Martha has a created  musical flowing journey that weaves through many places and many colors. The album is a tasteful marriage between midi and acoustic.  I could see this music being used in theater, television and movie sound tracks. Very Well done Julia!
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Beautiful images danced through my mind as I listened to TheatreWorks.  Ms. Goryuchkina’s music makes it easy to understand the connection that visual artists have to music.   As a painter, I found her music had the uncanny ability to create a sense of time, place, movement, and mood.
 
"MethenyEsque" is one of my favorites.  It starts with bright tones -- I hear optimism – dynamic energy – new beginnings – like those first few spirited brush strokes of color on a canvas – bright yellows, warm reds. The strings in the middle of this song form a beautiful bridge – very Spanish in tone it is filled with drama, seductiveness – a turning point – it reminds me of all of all the beautiful Spanish speaking cities I’ve dreamed of traveling to: Buenos Aires, Barcelona.
 
The individual notes of of “Estos Animales Muerden” are like beautiful silk threads weaving together to form an elaborate tapestry – you notice the beauty of each one, and combined they tell a story.
 
TheatreWorks is a sensory experience.  Listening to it is like viewing a great painting where each time you see, or in this case hear, something different and delightful.
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TheatreWorks is the latest release of Boston-based composer and pianist, Julia Goryuchkina. The opening number is Estos Animales Muerden, an evocative piece with soft sonorities (mallets, strings). The bitter-sweet ending and overall mood are somewhat reminiscent of Pat Metheny’s works during his early ECM phase. The following piece, MethenyEsque, continues with brooding harmonies and velvety timbres. Acoustic guitar feature, dreamy ostinato bass, and chromatically enhanced static harmony blend nicely with the opening number. Shardam Circus is an interesting change of pace. It moves the listener into different realm, featuring Russian melodicism, elegiac mood and contemplative thematic development, surrounded by orchestral textures. The “lonely Pagliacci” drama unfolds, and the story is told without the use of brass, which we sometimes expect by default at the climax of the piece.

The next composition, Lucy’s Piano, features soprano saxophone and acoustic guitar interplay. The lyrical theme in triple meter and ostinato bass line play with our imagination and transport us into the abstract world of sound and pictures. Russian-inspired Petrov-Like evokes reminescences of an ancient empire with its descending chromatic lines. It is a wonderful sequel to Shardam Circus. In Nina’s Fall I hear echoes of Egberto Gismonti. It is full of meandering arpeggios and quick shifts in orchestration, consistently reinventing itself. The closing number is appropriately titled TheatreWorks. This lovely waltz with very memorable melody has a dark and moody underscore. I hear images of a rainy day in Paris-the piece is a very fitting closing number and would make a perfect score for a French cinema.
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TheatreWorks is like a collection of music for films not yet created. However, at a time when film music is all sounding the same, what is most striking to me about TheatreWorks is not only how each piece is completely different from the rest, but how each seems to go on an audio journey of unexpected twists and turns. Ms. Goryuchkina has an unerring instinct for avoiding the expected, and always seems to do so in a thoroughly inspired and musical way. This work seems to be the product of a very fertile imagination, and I believe listeners will find themselves hitting the rewind button on their CD or media players to hear certain passages again and again.
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