As mothers we would kill or die for our children. As daughters we learn from our mothers to love with ferocity, navigate long division and city streets, to apply lipstick and plow gardens, and build lives that are beautiful and strong. And as we together grow gray, mature into our aging bodies, and weather the various storms of life, we depend on one another, often reversing the role of caretaker, holding fast when one precedes the other in death. This tender cyclical relationship is chronicled on Mother: Songs Celebrating Mothers and Motherhood by singers Susan McKeown and Cathie Ryan and contemporary New Age pianist Robin Speilberg, each of whom draws on her own evolving experiences. Mother is a lovely record of Celtic traditionals, lullabies, and original compositions: Spielberg's keys are as clear and bright as a full moon, Ryan's sweetly expressive soprano bounces and reverberates like a dance, and McKeown's warm throaty tones are an aural embrace. --Paige La Grone
