The American Virtuoso presents a recital by American pianist Paul Barnes. His third release for Orange Mountain Music, it features piano music by American composers including the world premiere recording of Barnes’ transcription of Philip Glass’ Piano Concerto No 2 ‘After Lewis and Clark’ – the full version of which he also premiered on OMM in 2006 with the Northwest Chamber Orchestra under Ralf Gothóni (OMM0030).

Praised by the New York Times for his “Lisztian thunder and deft fluidity” and the San Francisco Chronicle as “ferociously virtuosic,” Paul Barnes has electrified audiences with his intensely expressive playing. The Boston Globe praised his playing of the Glass concerto as “strong and sympathetic” while Gramophone remarked that the CD was “certainly one of the most enjoyable recent releases of Glass’s music… "Paul Barnes is a shining soloist”.

The focus of this first-rate solo recording are Samuel Barber’s landmark Sonata for piano of 1950, described by Vladimir Horowitz as “the first truly great native work in the form”, and his haunting Ballade and Nocturne. And it ends with two colourful contrasting pieces from the mid-1990s by Joan Tower from No Longer Very Clear, inspired by John Ashberry’s eponymous poem.