Planet Z featuring Susan Aquila
Self-Titled
Blue Chair Enterprises
The Viper 6-string violin has done for classical music what the electric guitar did for rock music, broaden its scope and stimulate musicians to use it as a tool to craft new melodic forms. Violinist Susan Aquila has taken the challenge of playing the electric violin and aroused audiences around the world with her skilled ministrations. Accompanied by the band Planet Z, Aquila’s new recording entitled Planet Z, showcases music arranged by band conductor Rob Tomaro and travels from the nursery rhyme motifs of “Cajun Queen” to the rock-themed explosions of “The Fire of the Planes”. Aquila and Planet Z canvass a wide spectrum of material crossing over genres and making classical music sound so electrifying.
The revving motion of the electric chords and the sleek rosin in her bows along “Bombay Express” open up the violin to new musical forms and turns the violin into a synth-type instrument. The melodic shimmers in “For Mehera” bend and shape Aquila’s chords into a microscopic oasis that flexes and changes with natural progressions. “Appellation Sproing” brings the violin into rock territory with torching flusters and thick reverberations amidst the lively drum strikes. The fiery projectiles sprinting across “Dance of Ecstasy” display the ambient tones of the violin which smoothens out into wispy strands ruminating along “Horizons Edge” emitting a gentle, lullaby sonorous.
Susan Aquila takes the electric violin into territories that have been considered foreign to the acoustic violin. With the robust gusts and rapturous reverberations of the electric guitar and the flexibility of the synthesizer, Aquila bucks the trend established by musicians before her and crafts new trends that set the bar higher for classical music artisans.
Susan Aquila – violin, Ray Marchica and Paul Pizzati – drums, Irio O’Farrill – bass, Joseph Church and Ted Baker – keyboards
Bombay Express, Cajun Queen, The Fire of the Planes, For Mehera, Appellation Sproing, Dance of Ecstasy, Horizon’s Edge