Victoria Salmon

Joyful Victoria Salmon

One summer, after hosting an art and cultural camp on the remote Black River, I made the journey to Anchorage from the little remote village I lived and taught in. My dear friends Larry and Karen invited me to stay at their hidden mountain retreat outside of Anchorage where I spent days on the piano, surrounded by mountains, wildflowers and light. When I got there, I was exhausted from months of traveling through the remote Interior of Alaska teaching in village schools. Temperatures plunge to 40 below and colder. I had slept on the floors of the schools and worked day and night to give the students a fine arts experience. Having this respite on the piano was truly a gift from heaven. It was recorded live at Alaska Steinway Gallery by engineer Peter Ratner, a Russian conductor emigre to Alaska. There was unfortunate background traffic noise from the street that came through on a few of the pieces. The recording ended up being sent to Eric James in Great Britain for mastering. Eric, a professor at Cambridge, is one of the leading classical recording engineers in the world and he labored to make sure the sound was corrected. And that is how Joyful was recorded. Just one two hour session plus a lot of nit-picky extrication by Eric of background noise. After a long, dark winter it was truly a joyful experience!