Music - Erica Mather: Muses Productions

Quotes

Jerome Wilson, Cadence
"Mather writes pieces full of life and joy, and she plays them with the same qualities."

Lee Prosser, Jazzreview.com
"Erica Mather is a new jazz pianist, one that has a gift for finding the right note every time to express a universal sound feeling...on top of all that, she has a unique piano sound that sets her apart from her contemporaries. Erica Mather shows promise as having the potential to become one of the great pianists of this century."

Les Thimmig, saxophonist and composer
"Over the years Erica Mather had constantly resisted the easy path and the way of the throng. In her case, this has lead to the crown jewel of artistic achievement: she's her own person. For the music she produces, you must go to her."

Natasha Kassulke, Wisconsin State Journal
"One of the first things to strike the listener is how well the trio workstogether...the energy they emit...and the emotion that comes out."

anonymous fan, thedailypage.com
"[Erica is] an incredible and original talent and very dedicated to her music."

Tom Laskin, The Isthmus

"Erica Mather [is] a swinging player with a modern, angular style who relies on block chords and Latin-inflected progressions for much of her sonic oomph."

Interviews and Articles

Erica Mather, The Millennium Song Cycle
Artist Interview by: Kurt Speilmann; Place: Madison, WI

June 1, 2002 - The release party for the Erica Mather Trio’s new CD, The Millennium Song Cycle, did not come off exactly as planned, but good music, especially good jazz, seldom does. It was scheduled to begin at 9:00. I arrived five minutes early only to find the Corral Room, a deep but narrow softly lit space in the basement under the Tornado Room on S. Hamilton, nearly empty. Already there were two doormen and a bored but finely dressed bartender. I walked in and sat at a table along one wall, opposite a booth at which two older gentlemen sat. In front, to the right of the staircase, Erica Mather, Todd Hill and Michael Brenneis were busy setting up and exchanged small talk. If they felt any bitterness at being neglected by Madison on what was supposed to be a big night, they kept it off their faces.

By 9:30, however, only a few more people had shown up. Five or six couples had walked sheepishly back up the stairs after learning of the $5 cover. Finally the Trio decided they had waited long enough. It was time to go on, audience or no audience.

They came out a little tight, especially Mather, like a cold car engine in the dead of winter, and whipped through two quick opening numbers without so much as a word to the crowd. At the table behind me, two couples gabbed back and forth, oblivious to the fact that at least a few of us had come to see music.

After that, something wonderful and simple happened. The evening turned. I’m not sure how or why it happened. Perhaps they needed those first two songs to loosen up and get their timing down. Perhaps one of them improvised something beautiful that nobody in the audience noticed but that inspired the other two musicians. Perhaps the Trio plays better when they have something to be angry about. Whatever the case, when they dove into that third song, “Them Changes,” the candles flickered, the people at the table behind us quit their chatter, and the evening turned the corner.