Desert of Crystal By Fiona Joy Hawkins

 

Desert of Crystal

By

Fiona Joy Hawkins

Written by

Steve Sheppard

 

I have great memories of pianist Fiona Joy Hawkins, back in 2013 when One World Music Radio was first starting, we interviewed her about her outstanding 600 Years in a Moment album, a release we still love to this day, now let’s skip forward 13 years and we can enjoy the fact that all those years later, we get to dive deep into her latest offering called Desert of Crystal, and what a fine collection of musical arrangements it is.

Starting the ball rolling is the breath taking opus of Desert of Crystal, this is one of my favourite pieces off the album and as a title track it is both powerful and emotive, I particularly like the slight pull back and then shift into a more powerful presentation, like sailing to the shifting sands of a desert, and performed with delicacy and precision.

The next piano narrative has a wonderful repeating theme within its construction which reminds me of my old friend David Lanz in style, this onward progression across the keys is incredibly palpable and called Running on Joy. With the next piece flowing freely after it, we are treated to a lush and fluent offering called Portrait of a Waterfall, this is beautifully played with some key moments featured within that make the overall narrative shine with a radiant tonal delight.

On Escarpment Dreaming there is a darkness that is demonstrable in its almost classical like performance; an element of mystery invokes a moment of a clandestine meeting occurring perhaps, for me this was yet another one of my personal favourite tracks from the release, gifting the listener and cinematic moment of piano drama to enjoy.

Our next port of musical call is To Meet (Yu Jian) a famous Chinese Taiwanese song from the movie "Turn Left, Turn Right".  This flowing melodic structure is incredibly pretty and leads us into the following piece called Falling (Twin Peaks Theme) I can remember years back watching this show on television and Fiona’s version is actually remarkable compared to the original theme by David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti.

Forgiveness has a tinge of memory caught in the web of a past mistake, one that plays haunting memories, and perhaps the forgiveness needs to be done by oneself! Regardless, this is a truly beautiful offering, one that contains such a mournful disposition about its construction, yet its melodic line offers us the one thing we all desire, hope.

On the composition Twilight Moment one can detect a soft segment being explored, and then a certain familiarity is found within the weave of the composition that is so fluent. The soft yet confident approach here builds something quite heart-warming to bathe within.

A similar creation comes up next and called Calling County Clare, here Fiona flows with the moment and brings forth a lively yet tempered piece with an even paced tempo and a bright and happy overall refrain, whilst on Sonatina in D Major Op.36 No.6 – Rondo Fiona shows her prowess at the classical musical genre with a perfect presentation of the Muzio Clementi piece from 1797.

Our penultimate offering is one of the most moving and emotive pieces for the release, anyone who lives in a hot dry country, like I do, will understand it perfectly, as by the end of July and early August we are usually petitioning Zeus with a Prayer For Rain ourselves. This is an amazingly powerful offering spawned from the first few drops of music, which is a quieter overall narrative, but a very impressive offering indeed.

This final piece follows on perfectly from the last offering and called Tolling of the Fire Bell, again something we dread around this time of year and for another couple of months yet, we had a wild fire only yesterday, but thankfully our troops in Cyprus, they managed to quell it, here Fiona Joy Hawkins pours her heart into a tragic offering I remember from a few years back, based on the same subject matter and manifests something deeply moving and heartfelt.

Desert of Crystal by Fiona Joy Hawkins is an album that fans of the piano genre will adore and worship, it contains 12 tracks, 10 of which are original, and each and every piece is hand crafted to maximise a quality performance in all aspects, whether they bring back memories or give one solace and peace, one can rest assured that Desert of Crystal by Fiona Joy Hawkins will be chart bound sooner than later, and a truly good chart place should be on offer for the artist as well.