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Artist: Pei-Wen Liao, William Goldstein
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Pei-Wen Liao, William Goldstein:

Brushstrokes

As a composer who has scored over 50 film and television projects, who loves opera and musical theater as well as the ballet, the association of visuals and music is as natural as breathing air. Two characteristics of almost all my music, regardless of genres, is the emotional connectivity felt by the listener, and the conjuring up of images in the listener's mind.

Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, was a collection of pieces inspired by works of art in the gallery. This collection of musical compositions was created in reverse. Mussorgsky was inspired by the Pictures at an Exhibition he attended. His movements were inspired by what he saw. Having recorded a very diverse group of pieces with my colleague Pei-Wen Liao, I was looking for a concept that would unite all the pieces in the album. Many of the tracks were musically inspired by the French Impressionists, Debussy and Ravel, as well as Michel Legrand. I immediately started thinking of paintings.

I scoured the website for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as other collections, to come up with a number of paintings that matched the feeling I had for the works we created. Perhaps the most challenging was to match the visual for the Chinese influenced first track on the album. However as soon a s I found Qian Xuan’s "Watching Geese", a Chinese Scroll Painting, I felt that image was the perfect cover for the album, as well as the title for the opening track.

Brushstrokes: The Intersection of Art and Music presents a collection of musical compositions, created in real time by two composer performers creating simultaneously. In other words, a five-minute piece is created in five minutes.