When 28-year-old German pianist Julius Asal was invited to give a recital at the Chapel of the Sun on American producer Rick Rubin's estate in the Tuscan city of Siena, he was captivated by the atmosphere and acoustics of the centuries-old building. "There are places where you want to keep playing even after the audience has gone home," he recalls. "Somehow I felt like the sounds in those walls could reverberate endlessly." Asal had found the recording location for his second album, SIENA TAPES, which is built around four solo piano works by Ravel and new improvisational pieces of his own.