ALEXANDRA STRÉLISKI Inscape

One of the rare women in the neoclassical world, Alexandra Stréliski creates music that enthralls listeners, filling their minds with rich, cinematic images. An artist of Polish Jewish origin who grew up between Paris and Montreal, she made her debut with the 2010 album Pianoscope, but the general public discovered her via Jean-Marc Vallée’s films Dallas Buyers Club (2013) and Demolition (2016) and, more recently, the trailer of the acclaimed HBO series Big Little Lies (2017). Building on this momentum, the composer and musician is now ready to make her next artistic statement with the album Inscape, due out on Secret City Records.

“To me,” says Stréliski, “Inscape was an existential crisis. A year where everything capsized and I had to go through various interior landscapes – hectic, beautiful and painful at the same time.” In her attempt to fill a certain emotional emptiness, she follows a creative urge that commits to taking the listener back to a form of lost sincerity. “A piano, on its own, is a very vulnerable thing, and I want to share this moment with the listener.”

The aforementioned support of Jean-Marc Vallée, which allowed Stréliski’s music to be heard during the Oscars ceremony, brought her streaming numbers up to nearly 15 million streams. UK newspaper The Telegraph praised her debut album as “distinguishable by its simplicity, its sensitivity and softness” and “imbued with both melancholy and light.”