Pianist Liza Stepanova, praised by The New York Times for her “thoughtful musicality” and “fleet-fingered panache,” celebrates the release of her new album, Tones & Colors (CAG Records), with this concert at National Sawdust. The album, recorded by acclaimed producer and National Sawdust Curator Adam Abeshouse, will be available at the concert on January 6 and at all major retailers on January 19.

Tones & Colors showcases the cross-pollination between visual and aural media through 13 pieces of music, spanning the centuries between Bach and Ligeti and featuring music by composers including Enrique Granados, Maurice Ohana, Joaquín Turina, Fanny Hensel, Bohuslav Martinů, Claude Debussy, Johann Sebastian Bach, George Crumb, György Ligeti, Lyonel Feininger, and Leopold Godowsky, each paired with a painting, drawing, or sculpture. Stepanova will perform selections from the album at National Sawdust.

On the genesis of Tones & Colors, Liza Stepanova says, “This has been a project long in the making. I have had an interest in visual art ever since traveling Europe as a child and going to the wonderful museums in Germany, France, and Italy. Later, by playing musical works that were obviously connected to art (Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Poulenc’s Work of a Painter songs), I became more interested in the intersections between art and music and went on to curate recitals exploring these connections for my then-ensemble, SongFusion, and various summer festivals. In 2010, I traveled to Germany on a Juilliard grant to study the works of the Mendelssohn siblings and became aware of the unique illustrated manuscript of Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel’s piano cycle The Year, with vignettes by her husband, painter Wilhelm Hensel. One of the musical months from this cycle, ‘September,’ is featured on this recording.”