Ken Benshoof’s modest and charming piano idiom suggests Virgil Thomson’s homespun vignettes, or perhaps Stephen Foster and Randy Newman filtered through Copland’s wide intervals, effectively if not virtuosically deployed for keyboard. Some pieces might be described as a more sophisticated version of new-age “folk” piano, as if George Winston and Schumann’s Album for the Young morphed. The composer’s 24 Preludes flow from one into the next with fluent ease, although they don’t vary as much in mood and emotional scope as the booklet annotations claim. These are followed another set of 24 Preludes entitled Patti’s Parlour Pieces, where pop and jazz influences make themselves felt to a greater extent. Perhaps a less dry recorded ambience would have allowed Lisa Bergman’s sensitive, beautifully phrased performances more room to resonate and shimmer. Piano teachers who want to get intermediate students into American piano music will find these attractive, easy to grasp works an ideal point of entry.
