"The 'muses nine' here are eight American women composers and their advocate Becky Billock.  Special pleading?  More a case of redressing a balance, surely, when it brings to light pieces as impressive as Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's cogently atmospheric 1999 Elegy [sic] or Emma Lou Diemer's 1979 Toccata, full of imaginative sonorities on keys and strings.  Past generations are represented by four pieces by Amy Beach, mostly Romantic in tone; the Six Preludes of 1922 by Marion Bauer, derivative in language but well constructed; and Margaret Bonds's 1967 Troubled Water, an infectiously rhythmic treatment of a spiritual.  There's further variety with Diane Thome's ringing 1995 Spiral Journey, Molly Joyce's dreaming 2010 Medium Piano, and Libby Larsen's 2000 Mephisto Rag, an unlikely fusion of Liszt and Joplin.  Billock presents all this capably and persuasively, though she isn't flattered by the close-up dry recording."

Performance   ****
Recording          **
BBC Music Magazine - Anthony Burton
November 2011