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‘LOVE’ album review – Catherine Wood

‘LOVE’ album review – Catherine Wood

‘LOVE’ album review – Catherine Wood

Listening to piano being played as masterfully as it is by consummate musician and pianist Catherine Wood is nothing less than an exquisite delight. Catherine’s many years of professional playing lend a deep fluency to the way she expresses infinite angles of light and shade in her music, using a huge tonal range of the keyboard and always accenting with absolute lightness and grace.

This stunning instrumental album communicates every bit as powerfully as if it had words. A collection of 9 improvised tracks, LOVE offers the freedom of minimal structure, and with the mastery of Catherine’s playing we travel with her as she expresses her vast love through music and the piano. This is a deeply intimate offering, where Catherine opens the curtains to let us feel the tenderness, sassiness, solidness, playfulness, reverence, devotion, lightness, stillness and sacredness of the woman she is. A fluid symposium of genres that travels through contemporary and classical styles yet is never imprisoned in their structure; one can feel the unity of Heaven playing. After hundreds of listens to this album it never tires, always offering a fresh angle to be felt within a simplicity that never imposes, just holds.

Above all, in every track there is a deep steadiness of presence which is held in the vastness of space. It feels like Catherine allows space to inform every tinkling, gentle, playful, strident and groove-filled note she plays. She plays into the space, never trying to obscure it as so often musicians do. The end result is the antithesis of any other instrumental piano album I have heard.

LOVE does not draw you into comfort or emotions, but wordlessly gives expression to the constantly shifting and expanding experience of multi-dimensional awareness. It offers access to feelings and realisations, held by the music in the magnificence from which it comes.

Often the word relaxing is associated with the piano but listening to these tracks offers an experience far beyond relaxation – one of heart-opening deep joy and delight, leaving you feeling like you’ve been bathed in stillness and held by pure, pristine light. It is truly a LOVE song to the grandness of Space.

LOVE can be purchased here: https://www.catherinewood.com.au


Filed under

Energy in music,  Love,  Stillness

  • By Janna Goodwille, BA Hons (French), Grad. Diplomas in Music teaching & Community Music

    For 20 years Janna worked as a professional musician, choir-leader and music teacher before changing careers to become an NHS manager. She absolutely loves learning to allow her sensitivity to inform the way she moves through life.

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