Sophie Hutchings - Yonder

A Closer Listen

Australian pianist Sophie Hutchings ascends on the wings of eagles, because she rises higher and higher with every release. On Yonder, serenity and freedom are forever blooming. The Sydney-based pianist has a captivating style, a melodicism without limits, ebbing and flowing from the stream bed of her piano.

Yonder puts Hutchings among the elite. She clasps true and lasting emotions to the heart, never letting them go. Her music retains a passing scent of what is unknown and what will always be unknowable; something which can never be explained, like a distant sighting of a swaying figure. Her magical playing is something to cherish.

Infused with love, her compositions have wonderfully radiant faces, as if blessed from above. Calm and yet able to stir up stormy weather, her music creates colorful contrasts akin to yin and yang. Like a precious jewel, one gleaming melody after another emerges, lighting up the music’s sky with a constellation of evening stars. Summer colors respond to the sound of her lyrical, romantic music.

Yonder‘s thoughtful music heals what bruises, and it retains an ambient atmosphere as notes are caressed into being. The notes form an unbreakable chain of friendship, appearing with a dazzling iridescence and soothing with a spellbinding lullaby. Notes drip like rainwater in the middle of a monsoon. Yonder is a wild heart, journeying from the youthful orb of sunrise to the scarlet and indigo flame of sunset. The piano drives (or levitates – it’s that smooth) through a spectacular and ever-changing landscape. Yonder has an open heart.

An area of sunshine dapples the music, creating a generous amount of space and warmth. An open road is unraveling, with a series of unchained melodies encapsulating freedom. The road then melts into the horizon until the two are indistinguishable – both are one and the same. Everything links up, like letters in the alphabet or a line of distant trees. Her yawning and contemplative melodies are wide-open and thankful, appreciative of every heartbeat.

Open vistas – buena vistas – pass before your eyes. And all of a sudden, just like that, the vivid images of life appear from behind in the rear-view mirror. Her sun splashed melodies are as bright as the chrome paintwork of the speeding car. The wind ruffles the hair as the speeds reach forty, fifty, sixty miles-per-hour, but still the music enjoys a purring, soporific motion. Canyons of soft red are graced by a near-silent breeze as the snaking road passes along a golden coastline. Fluttering melodies are rippling from vibrating wings. Yonder is a companion along what can sometimes be a lonely road. It makes you feel alive; it’s the feeling of your heart beating in your chest, as well as in someone else’s life. (James Catchpole)

Available here