DESERT STARS Solo Works for Piano and Guitar Composed and Performed by RUSSELL STEINBERG About the music... This CD is a collection of my solo pieces for piano and classical guitar. . The music is often quiet and reflective, but sings in warm tonal colors surrounded by a kind of hazy harmonic resonance. As a kid, I liked to hold down the pedal on the piano and blur the harmonies-that may be the origin of this hazy resonance that threads through this music, which otherwise has no pretensions of being modern or innovative. Some brief notes follow Joy in Sea is an exuberant and playful romp of a piano prelude. The title is a pun on it's tonal center (C) and inspirational origin I had just moved near the ocean in Pacific Palisades, CA. The Five Preludes for Guitar are simple romantic pieces for classical guitar. The second prelude, 'Daffodils,' is dedicated to Karen Whalen, a next door neighbor who confided that one night my music had turned her from suicidal thoughts -rather the opposite of what I was hearing from other neighbors! All three Floating Preludes for Piano glow with an upper register resonance. The wispy phrases of 'Clouds' unfold and float along in the extremes of high and low registers. Within the miniature world of 'Clocks' is a kind of mad ticking that courses through an angry cosmos. 'Elysium' is a nod to the special sonic worlds of French composer Maurice Ravel, but with my personal quiet treble resonances. The arches and ornaments of Arabesque are inspired by two famous classical works of the same name, one by Robert Schumann and the other by Claude Debussy. Amazing Grace' Variations was actually a composition assignment to produce stylistic variations on this famous hymn tune. The first variation features the tune upside down in the style of Erik Satie's Gymnopedies, the second variation sets the tune in an impressionist blues style, the third uses