Pre-Owned Asa: Piano Music by Composers of African Descent (CD 0681585124222) by William Chapman Nyaho (piano)

0681585124222. Pre-Owned: Good condition. CD. This release by American pianist William Chapman Nyaho, who is of Ghanaian background, collects music by black composers in a way that has rarely if ever been done before, and it's highly recommended to anyone interested in the intersection of African music with European concert forms. The program is unusual and instructive in two ways. First, it's cross-generational. Much of the music is by contemporary composers, but there are also a few classics of the genre like Florence Price's Dances in the Canebrakes. Nyaho brings out the continuities between the generations, with the basic impulse toward drawing on African-based rhythmic materials intact even as the younger composers add contemporary techniques. The program also includes more non-American than American pieces, and here, too, Nyaho makes a powerful case for the African diaspora as a musical unity. The older pieces are especially interesting in this regard. "Pomme Cannelle" (Cinnamon Apple) from Guadeloupean composer Alain-Pierre Pradel's Sept...