With his score for Ansel Adams, Grammy-winning composer Brian Keane (Long Journey Home: The Irish in America) continues his association with documentary filmmaker Ric Burns -- a relationship that began with the Emmy Award-winning PBS film New York. With his evocative piano and guitar solos (the latter reflecting Keane's early years in a famed duo with Larry Coryell) and lushly orchestrated passages, Keane evokes the grandeur and fragility of the wilderness explored by famed photographer and environmentalist Ansel Adams. The opening piece, "Benediction Piano," incorporates the sounds of the ocean and birds into a gentle solo keyboard melody. The tenderness of that theme takes wing in the expansive "Benediction Orchestral." Throughout, Keane conjures the zest and vitality of pure Americana, whether in the simplicity of a guitar solo in "Cowboy Song" or the hymnlike orchestral sound of "Ansel's Theme," which is reminiscent of the soaring dignity of Aaron Copland's classic "Fanfare for the Common Man." The breaking of ocean waves return on the closing piece, "Bach Prelude," performed by Adams himself. Like Adams's gorgeous photographs, Keane's music reflects the artist's love for the majesty of nature.
