Pianist Vicki Ray records new work by Daniel Lentz
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.