Hell's Kitchen Productions - Peter Gilmore 2007

Dr. Mark Birnbaum: Cool Piano

Maestro Birnbaum presents a potent program displaying his virtuosity as well as his extraordinarily heartfelt interpretive skills. He has mastered the idioms of Joplin, Debussy, and Scriabin—a rare feat, and here he has selected pieces that well complement each other. His Joplin is earthy, detailed and playful, projecting a thoroughly carnal love of life. In the Debussy works, Birnbaum captures his impressionism with a painterly touch, from the majesty of the “Sunken Cathedral” to the piquant vista of “Reverie.” He evokes that surging sense of decadence and diablerie so essential to Scriabin including the dissonant “Sonata