Masha Stepina is originaly from south of Russia( Rostov-on Don). She came to Holland in 2002 to study jazz piano and to play with international musicians. Masha plays only original music with her trio: great jazz musicians Wim Essed(bass) and Soto Ntouvas(drums). They are working to create new sound in the jazz piano trio. Masha is trying to combine jazz with classik, latin traditions. The most interesting she finds to work on rythmical improvisation and time signature staff. Introducing the Masha Stepina piano trio. They gathered for the first time in spring 2006. When Masha invited Wim and Soto to play on her final recital at the Rotterdam Conservatory where Soto was also a graduated student and where Wim has been a professor for over 20 years.With this project successfully finished, it turned out that the level of mutual understanding and common views on exploring and performing a specially close-knit form of trio playing was too tempting to leave it at that. So, the trio has been working since , not so much on changing , but looking deeper into possi-bilities of creating different musical strata and approaches in the traditional trio set up.The trio performs original material from Masha's pen. When listening to her compositions one will experience a wealth of musical legacy as well as glimpses of things yet to come. Besides the obvios jazz and pop connections there is a clear classic heritage; one can detect influences from Bach to the great Late Romantic Russian composers like Skriabin and Rachmaninov . Just as well one could point at the unusual structures and sometimes special , but clear froms of the pieces, the impressionistic and expressionistic ways of musical development and improvisations or the multi - layered and counterpointed way of interpretation.The sound of the trio can thus vary from agitated and busy ( Modern Life) to stillness and restraint evocating a wide Russian Landscape in winter( January, White Spaces). Anyhow, the music has quite a bit of describing and colorful aspects and as such often feels like the soundtrack for an until now unmade movie. A movie that would clearly need some nostalgic and longing scenes to fit to the sound of the Masha Stepina piano trio. Written by Wim Essed
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