Pianist Vicki Ray’s (DMA ’88) recent recording of River of 1,000 Streams by composer Daniel Lentz was warmly reviewed by the website I Care If You Listen. Referring to the USC Thornton alumna as a “Los Angeles luminary,” reviewer Nick Stevens lauded her performance as a “colorful, nuanced, arresting statement,” demonstrating “first-rate artistry.”
Lentz’s 28-minute composition for electronically-processed piano requires almost continually-sustained “textural” tremolo in a grueling test of technique and endurance. “It takes rare skill to make a piano sound like an ecosystem unto itself,” Stevens noted. “With a pianist like Ray at the keyboard, anything is possible.”
Ray is an accomplished soloist and collaborative artist, specializing in new music. She currently serves as coordinator for the Piano/Keyboard and Collaborative Keyboard Programs at the California Institute of the Arts and regularly performs with PianoSpheres.