Much of the music in this recital is both technically and musically challenging, yet Sughayer sounds entirely at one with its impassioned eloquence, scorching intensity and coruscating musical patterning…He captures the music’s essence with such a close sense of recreative identity that it fees on occasion as though he could be composing it as he goes along. An outstanding debut.

For a debut album this is a stunner. It shows Sughayer as a most mature artist already, one capable not only of handling the numerous technical challenges of this music, but one also ready to tackle the emotional complexities of the music itself. And the recording too is a stunner.

Overall, Sughayer portrays Khachaturian’s affective extremes with a conviction that diverts attention from the not insignificant technical challenges involved...The inerrant focus of these performances reveals the folk origins of Khachaturian’s idiom to an extent sometimes obscured by his opulent orchestral writing.

What is beyond question about the new disc is Iyad Sughayan’s exceptional pianism and BIS’s magnificent sound... I commend this disc to lovers of magnificent pianism and outstanding recorded fidelity.