Move Records Australian classical & art music, est. 1968
Front cover art for The life in between

New release

The life in between

Michael Kieran Harvey anchors this solo piano programme with Martin Friedel’s final work, …the life in between…, then sets it among virtuoso scores by Pertout, Crossman, Spiers, Selleck and McAlley.

Michael Kieran Harveypiano Martin Friedelcomposer
  • CatalogueMD 3483
  • Released15 Jul 2026
  • Playing time73 minutes 36 seconds
  • Recorded at Move Records Studio

Listen & tracks

4 of 18 tracks have a preview · 6 works · 73:36

  1. … the life in between …Martin Friedel 10 movements22:03
    1. 1 i. [2022] 3:16
    2. 2 ii. [2022] 1:29
    3. 3 iii. [2022] 1:53
    4. 4 iv. [2022] 2:02
    5. 5 v. [2022] 1:32
    6. 6 vi. a [2022] 1:44
    7. 7 vi. b [2022] 1:21
    8. 8 vii. [2022] 2:00
    9. 9 viii. [2022] 2:40
    10. 10 ix. [2022] 4:06
  2. 11 L’architecture du cosmos, no.425 Andrián Pertout for pianoforte [2014] 10:37
  3. 12 Not Fading Resonance Bruce Crossman [2023] 8:04
  4. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (after Dorothea Tanning)Colin Spiers 4 movements21:11
    1. 13 i. “Hallway” poco lento [2021] 4:36
    2. 14 ii. “Duality” allegro [2021] 4:49
    3. 15 iii. “Sunflower” molto moderato [2021] 6:36
    4. 16 iv. “Doorway” andante [2021] 5:10
  5. 17 Homage to Liszt Johanna Selleck for piano [2013] 6:17
  6. 18 Toccata Vaughan McAlley [2025] 5:24

Friedel’s ten brief pieces, completed in 2022 and touched by a saying of the Tibetan sage Milarepa, open the disc in spare, searching textures.

Around them Harvey places Andrián Pertout’s Fibonacci-driven L’architecture du cosmos, Bruce Crossman’s resonant birthday tribute Not Fading Resonance, Colin Spiers’s four-movement response to Dorothea Tanning, Johanna Selleck’s Homage to Liszt, and Vaughan McAlley’s contrapuntal Toccata.

The collection maps the stylistic range of recent Australian piano writing through one of its most dedicated interpreters.

Reviews

Friedel’s 10 miniatures invoke many emotional places moving from introspection to clear-sighted elation and all places between. Andrián Pertout’s L’architecture du cosmos is a tour de force of composition and performance. MKH is breathtaking in throwing off the technical difficulties in this stunningly virtuosic score. Pertout can write music that thrills and intrigues and this work is a testament to his skill and imagination. Johanna Selleck, Homage to Liszt for piano, and Vaughan McAlley, Toccata, contribute works that reference music of past masters, Liszt and Bach respectively. Both make entertaining listening and their placement at the end of the playlist is inspired. This CD celebrates composers at the height of invention who follow their own path and eschew the more simple and fashionable trends in classical music. It is a CD that all who love piano music should add to their collection.

— Alan Holly, classikON

Here comes another solo collection on the Move Records label from Michael Kieran Harvey that endlessly fertile pianist-composer now resident in Hobart and still one of the dominant forces in this country’s musical environment – playing with the same mastery while writing works that are thoroughly exciting to hear. On . . . the life in between . . . , he gives pride of place (and his CD’s title) to the last work by Martin Friedel: a 2022 compendium of ten short pieces…written for Harvey – our most technically brilliant and temperamentally flamboyant pianist. Harvey plays nothing of his own, exerting his talents on behalf of five other composers. The oldest piece presented here is Johanna Selleck‘s Homage to Liszt from 2013…Almost contemporaneous is Andrian Pertout‘s L’architecture du cosmos from 2013-2014... This construct from the Melbourne-based writer/academic strikes me as the most rigorously organized work on the disc.With the challenging title of Eine kleine Nachtmusik (after Dorothea Tanning) Colin Spiers produced four movements in 2021 that owe nothing to any Mozartian predecessors and everything (including their titles) to the 1943 painting by the then-Surrealist American artist and – to put it in sexist terms – Max Ernst’s fourth (and last) wife…Bruce Crossman‘s Not Fading Resonance presents as a 2023 exercise in friendship for its dedicatee (pianist Harvey, on his 60th birthday) and sustained sounds from the keyboard, held notes and chords emerging out of rapid flurries of activity in a large-scale rondo form. The most recent composition. Vaughan McAlley‘s Toccata, was composed last year for Harvey and is the most tradition-echoing work on this CD. It demonstrates McAlley’s long background in choral singing (the Ensemble Gombert, Ormond College and Scots’ Church Choirs) and his mastery of ye olde-fashioned techniques of counterpoint and harmonic sequence.

— Clive O'Connell, oconnellthemusic

The Life inBetween album was absolutely delightful …

— David Joseph

Artists

Photograph of Michael Kieran Harvey

Michael Kieran Harvey

piano

Australian pianist and composer Dr Michael Kieran Harvey FAHA is among the foremost interpreters of contemporary piano music of his generation. A champion of Australian music, he regularly commissions new work and has performed with the country’s leading contemporary ensembles and orchestras.

 Photograph of Martin Friedel

Martin Friedel

composer

Martin Friedel (1945–2022) was an Australian composer whose work ranged from chamber opera and cantata to film and television. A trained scientist, he often drew themes from physics and natural philosophy into his music.

 Photograph of Bruce Crossman

Bruce Crossman

composer

Bruce Crossman (b. 1961) is an Australian composer who has achieved international recognition with performances in Australasia, Asia (China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Philippines), Europe (England, Holland, Germany) and the USA.

 Photograph of Vaughan McAlley

Vaughan McAlley

composer

Vaughan McAlley is a composer and arranger, alto and tenor, a capable flautist and French horn player, and the recording engineer behind countless Move releases.

 Photograph of Andrián Pertout

Andrián Pertout

composer

Andrián Pertout (b. 1963) is a Chilean-born Australian composer who settled in Melbourne in 1972. His rigorously structured music draws on wide cultural and mathematical resources and has been performed in more than forty countries.

 Photograph of Johanna Selleck

Johanna Selleck

composer

Johanna Selleck is a composer, musicologist, and flautist. She holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne, where she is an honorary fellow. Her compositions have been performed by internationally renowned artists across Australia, Europe, the USA, Asia, and the Middle East.

 Photograph of Colin Spiers

Colin Spiers

composer

Born in 1957, Brisbane-born composer and pianist Colin Spiers studied at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, where his teachers were Max Olding, Rhonda Vickers, and Alan Lane. Graduating in 1979 with the conservatorium’s Medal of Excellence, Spiers was then awarded a Commonwealth Postgraduate Scholarship and studied with composer Philip Bracanin at the University of Queensland.

Digital booklet

Digital booklet Notes, texts and credits — read online or download the PDF Download the PDF

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Performers

Technical credits

Details

List price
$25.00 AUD
Total playing time
73 minutes 36 seconds
Release date
Categories
Australian, Classical
Genres
Contemporary Classical, Modernist Classical
Musical work copyright
© 2026 Move Records
Sound recording copyright
℗ 2026 Move Records
Catalogue
MD 3483
EAN
8721555368743

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