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Myron Silberstein releases CD of own piano compositions

Myron Silberstein and piano Myron Silberstein
March 26, 2026
James Ryan Prizant ’29

Teaching Assistant in Music Myron Silberstein’s new compilation CD, Myron Silberstein: Piano Music, 2016-22, features over two dozen sonatas and piano-led pieces, marking the first time the composer-pianist has ever made a release of music recordings featuring nothing but his own work.

“Though I have released five previous recordings of music by other composers, including several world premieres, this is the first recording dedicated to my own compositions,” Silberstein said.

Everything, from slow and somber tunes to fast-paced and jumpy melodies, is featured on this CD, totaling over an hour of music. Included in the composition are several pieces featuring appropriate one-word descriptive titles; Tumultuous opens rather quickly and chaotically, while Quiet starts slowly and simply. Silberstein described these titles as more akin to performance instructions, describing the emotion that the beginning of each respective piece evokes.

“They’re not actually titles,” Silberstein said. “[They describe] at least [what] is heard in the first few measures. A lengthier piece will have changes of tempo and changes of character.”

“If anybody is interested in excellent piano playing, this really displays high-level piano proficiency. I highly rate it.”

After listening to the compilation, Professor of Music Don Meyer noted specific compositional inspirations. “It sounds a lot like music that was written in the first half of the 20th century, which I think is a compliment,” he said. “I hear traces of Erik Satie, but it sounds more mid-century modernist. It has just an appealing amount of dissonance; it’s never boring, it’s always moving, it’s sort of restless.”

One standout on the CD, to Silberstein specifically, is the eight-minute opening collection of pieces, Four Impromptus. “I was focusing on rhythm as a driving force [and] as a guiding factor,” Silberstein said. “I called them ‘impromptus’ because, even though I put a great deal of thought and instruction into writing them, they just sound spontaneous. They’re intended to sound spontaneous.”

Meyer would go on to compliment Silberstein’s technical musical abilities. “I can tell that this is very carefully constructed, meticulous,” Meyer said, describing Silberstein as “highly proficient.”

“If anybody is interested in excellent piano playing, this really displays high-level piano proficiency. I highly rate it,” Meyer said. 

The CD ends with three compositions that are not part of a group of pieces. The last of these, Jortunioca, as well as other scattered pieces throughout the CD, were noted by Meyer as having intentional spontaneity. “I almost hear a little tango in [Jortunioca],” he said. “It’s metrically sophisticated. We hear pieces and we expect a regular recurring pulse, and downbeat, and things to organize themselves into measures of the same length. These don’t do that. They are constantly shifting. It surprises you, so it’s full of inventiveness.”

Silberstein hopes that all people, musically inclined or otherwise, will take something from his CD, whether emotionally or through the creative world of music composition. “I hope that they find something in the music that moved them,” he said. “You listen to it, you get swept away, you feel something, and the experience of the feeling enriches your life in some fashion.”

Myron Silberstein: Piano Music, 2016-22 was released on Toccata Classics on March 6, 2026, and can be purchased on Amazon and PrestonMusic or listened to for free on Spotify and Apple Music.