Review Text
Maki Namekawa is one of Glass's closest collaborators. In 2019 Glass composed his First Piano Sonata specifically for Namekawa and her particular brand of joyful precision. A major work, the Piano Sonata is twice as long as anything the composer has previously written for the instrument. His latest published work, it was premiered at the Piano Festival Ruhr in Germany in the summer of 2019 before having it's US premiere in New York in November 2019. It embraces the exacting expertise, playfulness, and joy which Namekawa brings to all of her music making. The album is rounded out by Glass's two most recent piano works, "Distant Figure" A Passacaglia for Solo Piano and 2012's Etude No.20.
