Journeys in Piano (EP edition) – Stationary Travels
This week’s modern classical listening journey wades into the seemingly shallow waters of the EP format to find a quarter of solo piano works of surprising depth and beauty – perfect listening for an autumn Sunday or a mental respite at day’s end. Featuring recent releases by Büşra Kayıkçı, Dustin O’Halloran, John Hayes, and Øystein Skar.
Büşra Kayıkçı – Weaving
Büşra Kayıkçı | Warner Classics
Weaving is a collection of pieces by Turkish pianist & composer Büşra Kayıkçı inspired by the traditional carpet looms she grew up around in Anatolia and the connection she saw with strings and fabric-covered hammers of her chosen instrument. She makes a compelling case that both she and the women who weave on the looms engage in the same act through different methods and that is “to”translating our inner worlds into something tangible”. Each song is built around symbolic motifs that often appear in the carpets such as birds, chests, and dragons.
The repetition, the patterns, the subtle variations that bring something to life—this is how I compose. It’s why I felt compelled to include real loom recordings in the album, capturing the raw, rhythmic pulse of hands at work, shaping something meaningful out of silence….I don’t know if this is just an album or if it’s something deeper—perhaps an attempt to find my own thread within this long tradition. But I do know that, just like those carpets, it holds something personal, something unsaid, something waiting to be woven into sound.
Büşra Kayıkçı
Weaving is now available for digital download and streaming via Warner Classics.
Dustin O’Halloran – The Chromatic Sessions
https://dustin.lnk.to/chromatic
Recorded in his studio in Reykjavík, American composer Dustin O’Halloran offers up a lovely triptych of solo piano pieces around the theme of colors, something that will resonate with synaesthetes like himself who experience color as sound. The impact of the journey is not the length or elaborate unfolding of the music as one might hear in O’Halloran’s soundtracks or works as part of A Winged Victory for the Sullen, but in the quiet epiphany of a spontaneous creative moment distilled into graceful moments that form a connection between artist and audience.
I’ve always loved triptychs in art and film, and I think the simplicity of these colors can have many meanings for the listener. Colors can tell a story without language — in the same way that music can, too.
Dustin O’Halloran
The Chromatic Sessions is available for digital download and streaming from Splinter Records along with a unique 7-inch vinyl bundle with three different colored discs – gold, red, and blue.
John Hayes – Lost Notes
https://johnhayes.bandcamp.com/album/lost-notes
Minnesotan multi-instrumentalist and producer John Hayes is busy working on a new record that takes his music into new realms of vibrant electronica, beats, and vocals but not to be missed is this gem that bundles a collection of quiet solo piano pieces which we can infer from his social media posts were found in his personal archives going back at least as far as the time he was recording his beautiful 2020 album The Last Best Place. Any speculations of origins aside, this is just a lovely collection of intimate vignettes that plays well on repeat.
Lost Notes is available for digital download & streaming directly from the artist.
Øystein Skar – Stories for A
https://modernarecords.bandcamp.com/album/stories-for-a
Stories for A is a collection of musical stories told primarily on piano by Norwegian composer Øystein Skar inspired by his experience of becoming a parent. The tender, minimalistic pieces not only as a personal reflection, but with the idea in mind that one day his daughter might play them herself. As one might expect, this means there is a certain simplicity to the songs, but Skar brings delicate sensitivities and deft skill to his renderings while weaving in subtle electronic textures to lend added depth and atmosphere.
It is a special feeling to create music for someone who might play it twenty years from now. How will she experience it? Will she find it beautiful, or strange? Will she understand the intention behind the album? Will she even play the piano? What will her life be like then? Will I be there to hear her play it?
Øystein Skar
Stories for A will be released digitally on November 7, 2025, by Moderna Records and is now available for pre-order. The EP features artwork by Mark Searcy.
