Album Notes

I'lana Cotton is a composer, improviser and pianist who lives in Medford, Oregon. She has for many years collaborated with other musicians and artists in visual and theatrical media, and has frequently performed with, and written commissions for many dancers and poets. She has also written extensively for acoustic chamber ensembles and choral groups. Her concert music has been performed throughout the US and has won several awards, most recently from the California-based Peninsula Community Foundation, the Ernest Bloch Festival Composers' Symposium in Newport, Oregon and ASCAP. She holds an M.A. in composition from the University of California at Los Angeles, with undergraduate music study at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Studies in non-Western music include north Indian classical vocal technique with Pandit Pran Nath, and Javanese gamelan with Max Harrell. She is the author of "Music of the Moment: A Graded Approach to the Art of Keyboard Improvisation," available from New Music Publications.

From the liner notes: "Life is a Journey filled with journeys, journeys of all kinds- physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and each has its own rhythm and mood."

"Songs for the Journey" is a strong and expressive blend of classical Western technique, dynamics and musical form with Eastern modalities and melodic ideas. These solo piano improvisations are often inspired by visual arts and media, poetry and dance: alternatively intense with energy, then quiet; fast and driving, then slow and spacious; dense and complex, then focussed on a solo melody. Some songs are restless and seeking solutions, others are playful and full of movement, others meditate on smallness and vastness. A Journey filled with journeys.