The Fire Within-Jennifer Thomas
The premiere I chose for my topic is the premiere of Jennifer Thomas’ piece and album, The Fire Within. I naturally was drawn to this performer as she is a classical epic cinematic composer and pianist but I was not prepared for this album premiere. I started listening to her music almost a decade ago and when I saw that she would be releasing a new piece soon, I couldn’t wait.
The Fire Within is her latest album in the making of her series. The composer and performer Jennifer Thomas had begun writing a concerto-like piano duet with her friend Kimberly StarKey years ago which later become the epic sounding piece known as The Fire Within to which she picked the piece to be her album cover piece. She has created many videos and vlogs of the process and there have been sources that explain the story to her pieces and why she decided to lite a piano on FIRE! How crazy is that? No musician ever thinks twice about hurting their instrument, and we are often very careful when handling them and on edge when others want to handle them. But she decided to lite one of her pianos on fire! She explains, that she had two reasons for lighting her precious instrument on fire; the 1st reason was because that specific piano was featured in many different YouTube videos where it was placed in rainforests and on beaches however, it was no longer of use. It broke during the making of one these videos and she decided that it was not going to sit in her garage. The 2nd reason was to reveal that inner drive in us all to overcome the challenges that are thrown at us in life. The music is supposed to bring out the lion in us all. But there is more than just The Fire Within! There are other pieces with their own story that she told through music.
Each piece of the album is either intense or soft spoken, but each one has a romantic age feel to it while also allowing you to take the music and picture a story. Almost like playing a movie in your head with your imagination while the music plays.
This was an American premiere that took place mainly over social media platforms instead of an in-person concert. While she did eventually perform with a live orchestra, she released the album on YouTube, Pandora, and Spotify for all of her fans. #mus130b
https://mainlypiano.com/reviews/jennifer-thomas-the-fire-within