Awake and Dreaming – Music of Alice Ping Yee Ho
Katherine Dowling
Independent (katherinedowling.com)
Read the Review
In her first solo album, pianist Katherine Dowling presents music by Chinese-Canadian composer Alice Ping Yee Ho. Colourful and dynamic, Ho’s writing makes impressive use of the piano’s resources, including some imaginative strumming and plucking of strings, and Dowling relishes the significant technical and interpretive demands of these works with assurance. Dowling has a keen ear for texture and colour, but also an impassioned – even impulsive – sense of forward momentum and line.
Inspired by Dali, the album’s opening work, Aeon (2012), provides a good sense of Ho’s piano writing as a dramatic and resonant slow introduction leads into a brilliant and driving toccata. Dowling’s characterization of the non-stop passagework is impressive. The most recent work on the album, There is no night without a dawning (2023) was commissioned by Dowling herself for this recording. An elegiac, meditative beginning works up to an agitated climax featuring ringing chords and trills. The album’s emotional high point is The Weeping Woman (2022), inspired by a series of portraits by Picasso. Dowling movingly captures the work’s depiction of the suffering of war, ranging from hushed mystery to searing intensity. Lighter, more playful moods are explored in shorter works such as the scherzo-like Fire of Imagination (1991) and Cyclone (1994), a repeated-note toccata.
Recorded at the Polaris Centre in Calgary in a resonant but detailed acoustic, Katherine Dowling’s portrait of Ho is an impressive achievement. Her extensive experience with and commitment to contemporary music results in authoritative interpretations, underlining both the drama and the atmosphere of Ho’s piano writing. Highly recommended for anyone interested in contemporary piano music, and the chance to hear music by one of Canada’s most acclaimed composers in compelling and virtuosic performances.
