Fiona Joy Hawkins – 600 Years in a Moment

Far from the shore, The winds will whisper,

600 Years and I will be home….

600 Years in a Moment was created as an answer to the question of ‘globalisation’ in a musical sense. It was recorded using a contemporary Australian piano with ancient instruments from around the world. Fiona’s concept is to bring instruments and their unique sounds from villages across the globe to explore the hidden musical treasures of cultures in a modern musical setting. The album is eclectic, acoustic, beautifully produced, and defies genre by bringing Classical, Jazz and World music together with New Age.

Celtic/New Age pianist, composer and singer Fiona Joy Hawkins celebrates her most epic and significant album 600 Years in Moment. “I have often wondered how globalisation effects music and how history changes our perception of instruments and the musical culture of our ancestors,” says Fiona.

Exploring time and history, bringing the past to the present, joining old with new and finding origins while looking into the future, 600 Years in a Moment is a journey from Fiona’s native Australia that travels sonically around the world with the distinctly Celtic flavour of her ancestors while combining sounds from other ancient cultures.

Recorded around the world from Newcastle Australia, Los Angeles California; New York,NY, Bremen and Portland, Maine; Halifax, Canada, and Imaginary Road Studios in Vermont, the album is also unique for the production credits that include Corin Nelsen, Will Ackerman and Fiona Joy Hawkins. 600 Years in a Moment was recorded in 96/24 and will be released in several formats including CD, SACD (hybrid/multichannel) and double vinyl album with bonus track for audiophile listeners.

Only recently Fiona was introduced to Stuart and Sons after a move to Newcastle NSW. A friend suggested she visit one of his clients who made pianos nearby. “The Stuart piano factory was literally two minutes from where I was living. It was an unfortunate time in my life where for over a year I had no piano at all. Then I met Wayne Stuart who offered his showroom full of concert grands for me to practice. I felt like I had won the lottery!”says Fiona.

All great art is a collaboration and there are some amazing contributions on 600 Years in a Moment. Produced by Will Ackerman, Corin Nelsen and Fiona Joy Hawkins, engineered by Corin Nelsen and Mastered by Bob Ludwig, the album had pedigree the moment it left the studio.

Contributions from Rebecca Daniel (Australian Chamber Orchestra), Eugene Friesen (Paul Winter Consort), Tony Levin (Paul McCartney), Jeff Haynes (Pat Metheney), Heather Rankin (Rankin Family), Marc Shulman (Suzanne Vega), Tod Boston, Paul Jarman, Michael Jackson, Phil Aaberg, Alfredo Rolando Ortiz and many others give the album its historical value and grace.

ARIA Finalist, MusicOZ Winner, ZMR multiple category winner (Including Album of the Year) and current IMA Finalist Fiona Joy Hawkins is set to take on a bigger stage and push the New Age genre boundaries with awards that have crossed genres to include World Music, New Age, Jazz, Classical and a Best Performance nomination shared with Pete Seeger as a top 5 finalist in the Independent Music Awards.

“One of the brightest lights in the contemporary instrumental genre Fiona Joy Hawkins is poised to move into stardom and we have only to watch to see it happen” – Will Ackerman (Founder Windham Hill Records).

CD Review by Michael Diamond – Music and Media Focus

With the press release for her latest album, “600 Years In A Moment,” heralding it as “her most epic and significant album,” I was of course very much looking forward to it.

And after hearing it in detail, I have to say that it definitely lives up to that lofty accolade.

“600 Years in a Moment” was recorded using a unique contemporary piano crafted in Australia along with ancient instruments from around the world.

Fiona’s concept is to bring instruments and their distinctive sounds from villages across the globe to explore the hidden musical treasures of cultures in a modern musical setting.

The album is eclectic, acoustic, beautifully produced, and spans genres with influences of new age, jazz, classical, and world music, with the distinctly Celtic flavour of her ancestors.

In addition to piano, Fiona also adds vocals on the album and has often been told that she sounds like an “Australian Enya.” A number of the songs begin with solo piano before being joined by other instruments and I appreciated that it provided a contrast and an opportunity to experience Fiona’s playing and melodic sensibilities on their own before flowing into a collective musical pool.

Reading the list of accompanists and instruments on the various songs, it might seem like the tracks could be rather busy, but everything is expertly mixed with just the right amount of subtlety to allow Fiona’s graceful piano to shine, while still providing melodic and textural support.

“600 Years In A Moment” is a masterful mélange of superlative musical performance, stunning contemporary composition, and widely diversified cultural influences.

Preceded by a string of award winning and critically acclaimed recordings, Fiona Joy Hawkins has outdone herself with this release and continues to set the bar ever higher in the unfolding of her creative potential.

CD Review by Chris Spencer

Fiona has trained as a classical piano player, but has ventured out into other genres.

This is her 7th album, if you count a compilation of her work which was the previous album released.

This is a New Age or ambient music album, using musicians playing a range of traditional instruments such as wooden flute, Spanish laud, bodhran, cello, hopi drum, Japanese kubota, violin, Turkish oud, a range of percussion instruments and the didgeridoo.

I’m not well versed in what comprises a Celtic song, but most of these songs don’t have the signature elements that I consider Celtic.

All but one of the 12 songs are instrumentals, with the opening track having a few spoken words and some murmurings sung by Heather Rankin, to set the mood for the album.

The songs are based around Hawkins’ piano, with different instruments added to vary the sound and spice the songs with some interesting diversity.

Each song is laid back, relaxed, very much what you might expect from an album of relaxation music.

The mood of the album is consistently mellow.

Naked Love is one of the album’s highlights, with its violin (played by Rebecca Daniel).

Track 3, The Journey has some soprano vocals provided again by Daniel, much in the mode of Enya, which suggests to me that the album could easily be the sound track to a movie.

However the violin on this track is played by Charlie Bisharat.

Other titles include Earthbound which is a piano solo, Gliding, Ancient Albatross, The Lost Ballerina and Antarctica.

I don’t think there is much interest to fans of folk music on this album.

However if you enjoy or are partial to ambient, new age music, this album should be of interest to you.

Those of you who are interested in world music, you might find elements that you will enjoy, if not for the variety of unusual traditional instruments that appear on the recording.

Background music or music to relax to.