LISA SWERDLOW, Book of Life Concerto

Never shy about sharing the depth of her emotions and intense curiosities about human existence and our place in the grand scheme of things, pianist/composer Lisa Swerdlow begins the text of the promotional materials for her compact yet truly epic masterwork Book of Life Concerto with an important admission – that she’s expressing herself from the perspective of a woman who has “now completed seventy years of existence in this lifetime.”

How grateful we are that for the last eight years of her seven decades she has shared her rich artistry, expansive array of passions, melodic grace and, perhaps most importantly, a sense of vulnerability in the face of shifting tides via a growing catalog of full-length albums and EPs.  Off to an inspiring start with her debut Equus Rising, which hit #1 on the One World Music Radio Top 100 chaert and was nominated for that outlet’s Best Solo Piano album of 2017, she has subsequently released albums sharing powerful journeys with us, from Voyager (sparked by a story she read about NASA’s twin Voyager spacecrafts) to her early 2025 EP Dancing Between Worlds, which drew on her ample gifts to chronicle the different stages of grief upon the loss of her beloved wife Lucie.

In my review of her 2020 album Lasting Impressions, I quoted Lisa as saying, “As a composer, music shows me something about my life that has been there all along, but often out of my view. All my music feels like it’s describing some essential truth that I’ve come to learn on this karmic adventure.”

The musical visionary both echoes and builds upon these thoughts in reflecting upon her Book of Life Concerto, whose core is an intimately soulful yet often sweeping and majestic three piece suite meditating upon repeating patterns she’s observed in her life and offering keen symphonic impressions of the clarity and wisdom life has blessed her with. She says, “Music has often been the way I express emotions that words cannot truly convey for me. The concept of another three-part composition to tell a story started to form about a year ago, but I wasn’t ready to bring it to life until last fall.

Fascinatingly, having locked into the sacred journey, the pieces themselves dictated the direction her fingers would flow: “Once I started composing, I wasn’t sure which movement I was actually working on.  I thought it was the first movement, but it didn’t make sense to me until I realized it was the third movement.  Then I wrote the second movement and finally the first movement started to develop.  But I knew when I started composing what each movement was to convey about life.”

As with all of Lisa’s works – and instrumental new age/neo-classical in general – the listener should feel free to read their own life experiences into the deeply moving piano with strings presentation, which begins with the elegant, moody and introspective at first and then more rhythmic, free-flowing and dramatic/exciting first chapter “Possibilities,” featuring the gorgeous harmonic coloring of flute and cello. Lisa explains the dark/light dichotomy this way: “From our earliest years we are filled with the belief that anything is possible, just follow our dreams. This is both uplifting to our spirits and at the same time carrying the responsibility of trying to fulfill our potential can be burdensome. . .Life is going to present us with new possibilities at every juncture which is both exciting and daunting.”  

The pianist then addresses life’s “Disappointments” (Chapter Two) via a dark, haunting and introspective piano melody that eases gently over haunting harmony chords reminiscent of “Moonlight Sonata,” all caressed by compassionate cello and string textures. Lisa’s belief that our disappointments in “love, work, health or purpose” necessarily propel us into making the “necessary changes and adjustments to pursue what will bring us closer to our essential selves” leads to a few shards of optimism via swelling strings and brighter notes before a return to the heavier realities the piece is grounded in.  

“Chapter Three: Discoveries” finds Lisa – at least at first – in a joyful, exuberant, dare we say dancing mode, as she begins driving home her hope that as we reflect upon our lives one memory (and in her world, measure!) at a time, we eventually will see life as a concerto the way she does. This piece begins with a sparkling, ascending piano melody which becomes more intense as it joins exuberantly with the rapturous sweep of the incredible orchestral arrangement by Doug Hammer and Dreamworld Productions.

Then something unexpected happens as Lisa engages in a sudden but brief tonal shift to delve into the stark truth that sometimes self-discovery can bring emotional strife and trauma. It feels like she’s channeling the flow of life, following that passage quickly with another burst of hopeful piano/orchestral magic that reaches multiple booming crescendos before a solemn, reflective ending. Perhaps she’s showing us that the journey of life is a series of explosive highs that can only be reached by hitting valleys along the way.      

While Lisa achieves quite the musical miracle by creating a powerful and creatively fulfilling three-movement concerto in under 15 minutes, she complements the first three pieces of Book of Life Concerto with compelling new versions of previously released pieces that relate profoundly to the theme of the larger work. First released as a solo piano piece, the lovely, lyrical title track to her 2023 album Through It All finds new life and breath in collaboration with Doug Hammer’s stirring string arrangements. Likewise, Lisa’s emotionally emphatic, possibility of a brand-new day filled expression “Dawn Contemplation” – first rendered as a solo piece on Lasting Impressions – caps the journey of the Concerto EP with a swirl of grace and power designed to propel our hearts forward to face the possibilities, disappointments and discoveries yet to come.