Lillian
New member
Elizabeth Naccarato is a new age pianist who has been occasionally making great albums since 1995, and now she is back with her sixth recording, called SOUVENIR D’ITALIA, and the title says it all. Elizabeth has traveled to Italy many times and has longtime friends there. She dearly loves the country and virtually everything about it -- the people, the countryside, the towns and cities, the sidewalk cafes, the food, the architecture, the museums. So she created an instrumental album that is like having a great coffee-table book of Italian images. She composed tunes about places there (“Assisi,” “Venetian Boat Song,” “Andrea’s Forest” and “Spanish Steps”), falling in love there (“Serenade” and “Romance,” and she covers “That’s Amore”), the sadness of a vacation ending (“Summer’s End”), and Italian music (“Waltz Italiano,” “Tango,” “Intermezzo”). It’s almost like going to Italy with a tape recorder and turning it on in every bar and club or meeting hall whenever a small ensemble of musicians gets together to play some soft, slow, gentle, romantic Italian-style tunes. To facilitate those sounds, Naccarato supplemented her piano with backing by other musicians on violin, accordion and mandolin, all of which give an Italian feeling to her compositions. In addition to being rooted in traditionalism sounds, she keeps it contemporary by putting bass, drums and saxophone on a couple of tunes. While other people go to Italy and bring back a miniature reproduction of a Michelangelo statue, a fancy hand-woven shawl or a bottle of hearty red wine, Elizabeth brought back thoughts and feelings about where she had visited and made her own souvenir of Italy. And we can all be glad she did.