Music For Study And Relaxation By Fiona Joy Hawkins

 

Music For Study And Relaxation

By

Fiona Joy Hawkins

Written by

Steve Sheppard

 

Many years have passed since I first listened to one of my personal favourite Fiona Joy Hawkins albums entitled 600 Years In A Moment, and now some almost 12 years later a release that probably surpasses even that comes to the fore, and called Music For Study And Relaxation. Fiona is without doubt one of the leading female forces in piano in this day and age, and too see her produce an epic album of this quality fills my heart with joy.

Our voyage starts with the beautiful opening piece called Lake of Contemplation ft Rebecca Daniel.  The strings here are so important, they not only add another dimension into the weave of the composition, but they create a texture that supports the soothing piano from the artist.

Twilight Moment although short form in musical structure, is a track that says a lot with its delicate and reflective performance, one can feel the importance of the time, when one holds back the night to strain one more second from the beauty of the moment, whilst on Flight of the Snowbird we have a cinematic track that could easily be used in movie, the layered strings and piano manifest a symbiotic partnership that is so utterly beautiful.

Music for Study and Relaxation is an 11 track collection of some of the best piano with added instrumentation I have heard for simply ages, for example one can enjoy the hovering intent of the piece Turquoise Interlude, or we can relive the magic of the past on the ever wonderful Blue Dream.  We might want to walk the halls of more mysterious and mystical creations like Calling Earth featuring Sidney Chopin, regardless Fiona Joy Hawkins with Music for Study and Relaxation has built a world of piano based music where there is literally something for everyone.

This quite stunning new release is concluded with the composition 600 Years of Rest ft Riverest, and I feel the circle of time through this track has once more been completed. This is a sublime arrangement to end with, like the entire album one could, and I did, literally bathe within its realms and be eternally happy doing so.

Music for Study and Relaxation by Fiona Joy Hawkins in my view her best work thus far, the soft pastiche of tone, the perfect timbre, and the breathtakingly beautiful compositional structures and multi instrumental performances, all go to making this album for me one of the best in this genre I have heard for decades, I can see this being a massive hit on the charts, and is most certainly award worthy.