IDEA

Abstraction is the generation of new ideas or concepts by omitting the differences (the "distinguishing features") of a given group of objects. For example, if we take a variety of white things of different shapes and sizes and ignore or "abstract" the aspects in which they differ, we achieve the abstract idea of "whiteness".
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Abstracting lies in organizing the tangible universe to create an intangible, imaginary, abstract one. Within this abstract universe, lies a very large part of human activity and life itself. We abstract to communicate; to understand and to make sense of the world; to build, to change, to try to explain ourselves.
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This record for solo piano (the piano is the instrument most often used to create abstract musical ideas of all kinds) is made up of three pieces written by three different composers, and performed by three different pianists. Each is an abstraction made by a different vision, i.e. in each of the pieces the composers make sense of their own reality by trying to erase the differences between the world they see and the world they want to express to others with their music. At the same time, each of these pieces is interpreted from a different approach to music (and of the world).
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The album "Abstractions" omits the differences between the visions that originate the three different pieces and the three different approaches to piano performance in order to achieve an idea: that we live a great part of our time in a world of abstract concepts that govern our way of understanding reality and the place we assume in the world and that, perhaps, we could take into account the way in which our mind builds a sense of the universe: by erasing the differences.
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Thus, this album is an invitation to forget the differences and look for the things that unite us with other human beings and with the world we inhabit. An invitation to abstract to help us recognize the world in ourselves, and ourselves in the world.
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Manuel Velázquez