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Milana Zilnik “Improvisation for you”

Review by Dave Greening

Milana Zilnik has everything it takes to become a famous modern day pianist, and I don’t use those words loosely, I honestly mean it. The reason why I say this is threefold – Her unmarked attention to and passion for the piano, her love for the piano, and her ability to create such inspiring pieces with the smallest melodic snippet to work with.

Listening to the three tracks offered to us in this series will make you take a step back and say, “yeah, right, these can’t be improvisations!” But they honestly are, I have attached the youtube link related to the track to prove it.

To write these improvisations Milana and Artyom asked fans of Milana’s music to submit melodic motifs for her to develop her improvisation upon. If any of you are SoundCloud oldies like myself and others who maintain this blog, you will recognise that this is a similar idea to Oliver Sadie‘s Your Tune project in which he wrote tracks based on SoundCloud user submissions. But what we get to see here in Milana’s endeavour are the raw inner-workings of it all, and how she came about to write these wonderful pieces. I might also say that the video is especially enjoyable to watch due to the camera work, editing, and also the cameo of her child too, picking out a motif by Robert Stadler which Milana may.. or may not have forgotten about!

The first track in this series of three (once the record button was pressed!) is based on a melody from the also talented Jaime Ross. It is also one of my favourites, and creates imagery of a luscious landscape filled with goodness, calm, and peace. This sort of new age piano is perfect to just relax to, and without a flaw or a skip in the beat, you’ll be floating. The second theme is from Robert Stadler/Robert Songs, and similarly this one will leave you feeling happy and relaxed inside. Milana uses some glorious and inventive chords, showing off her knowledge of the piano and music theory in the path that the melody takes. The last is as equally beautiful as the former two, with the melody inspired by Marlinda/ArcelliA. I especially enjoy the runs in this one and the mood-heightening trills interjected at the will of a pianistic great! I’m sure you’ll all agree!

Review by Dave Greening