Myron Silberstein * Myron Silberstein: Pno Music 2016-22 [New CD]

Myron Silberstein, Brooklyn-born (in 1974) and a long-term resident of Chicago, belongs to that centuries-old tradition of the composer-pianist. But here the distant roots are not so much in Mozart and Beethoven as in Copland and Barber. Silberstein's language echoes the tradition of earlier American composers like Creston, Mennin and Persichetti, and his tonal harmony may remind some listeners of mid-twentieth-century jazz, especially in it's sense of improvisatory freedom. Like much of American culture more generally, it is open, outgoing and often positive in spirit.