Gershwin's An American in Paris-Great American Com

Ever since PBS filmed a concert of music from my CD quot;The Great American Pianoquot;, I have been asked to perform music from that program all over America. It was such a pleasure to share this music- our musical heritage - with people from around the country, that I decided to do another album. quot;Great American Composersquot; is in many ways the companion CD to quot;The Great American Pianoquot;. Of course any CD devoted to American music must include Gershwin. The piano was Gershwin's first love and I found that quot;American in Parisquot; translated beautifully to the keyboard. Less well known are the Gottschalk pieces. Gottschalk was the first internationally renowned American concert pianist and his Caprice Americaine (inspired by the melody from Stephen Foster's quot;My Old Kentucky Homequot;) is a tour-de-force of piano writing. Included is a piano arrangement of quot;My Old Kentucky Homequot; and it is clear that in the realm of melody writing Stephen Foster is the quot;American Schubertquot;. With regard to such icons as Barber, Bernstein, Copland and Sondheim, the quality of their musical thought is so stunning that I prefer to let the music speak for itself. Permit me however to make a final comment on the beautiful simplicity of Scott Joplin's concert waltz quot;Bethenaquot;. I include this little ragtime waltz as a unique glimpse of the beginning of the American Century. Paul Bisaccia, Provincetown MA Mr. Bisaccia is the first person in history to record the complete solo piano music of George Gershwin. His most recent CD 'The Great American Piano Revisited' contains the world premiere recording of new unpublished Gershwin ragtime and other world premieres of great Americana.