A Cornucopia on Piano, From Gifted Vicki Ray

Seemingly the hardest-working pianist in Los Angeles, Ray has become something of a local legend. Any given week you will find her accompanying a tenor in a Schubert song cycle or performing the latest local composer premiere or appearing with various new music ensembles or involving herself in a Morton Feldman marathon, to say nothing of running the CalArts piano department.

That, of course, puts her in an ideal position to survey the “left edge,” namely the West Coast music scene at this moment, in a series of pieces written for her by friends. From her USC connection (she is married to USC composer Donald Crockett) there are expressionistic works of compositional grit by Crockett and Stephen Hartke and South African transplant Shaun Naidoo, who throws in pop samples. From her association with the California EAR Unit come hip, impressionistic pieces by percussionists Amy Knoles and Arthur Jarvinen. From the Bay Area, there is an enchanting, watery, modal, slightly Indonesian-sounding piece by Paul Dresher. A pianist with a sparkling tone and a gripping rhythmic sense, Ray makes everything she touches a pleasure to listen to.

Ray and her EAR Unit colleagues (Jarvinen and Dorothy Stone) also give a “left edge” to Feldman’s hauntingly sensual 90-minute “Crippled Symmetry.” Feldman’s extremely long and slow-moving works from the ‘80s, in which a few seductive melodic ideas are elongated into a mesmerizing, time-bending, spiritual (and even erotic) experience, have an intellectual rigor that has long appealed to his East Coast Abstract Expressionist crowd and as well as Europeans. (Overseas, he is sometimes hailed as the greatest American composer of the century.) But Feldman also had a strong connection with his West Coast champions (including the EAR Unit, the Kronos Quartet and Michael Tilson Thomas).

This new and stunning performance of “Crippled Symmetry” replaces the hard-edged glitter of a 1991 CD (a performance on Hat Hut by East Coast and German Feldman devotees) with the warm, enchanting glow of soft air and long sunsets. It’s simply irresistible. Booklet notes by John Rockwell offer an amusing and illuminating portrait of Feldman.