Rob Schwimmer: Beyond the Sky

Solo piano and theremin

"Virtuosity, magic and humor."
— The New York Times

"Rob Schwimmer's legendary keyboard talents are often appreciated in his hometown, New York, NY... The rest of the world rarely gets a glimpse of his astonishing artistry—until now. 'Beyond the Sky' will give you a nice dose of Rob's amazing pianistic skills, his incredible improv abilities, his compositional brilliance, and his Theremin chops. But those are just the stats. This is exquisitely beautiful music, worthy of deep listening."
— Keyboard Magazine

"Extraordinary... lyrical, harmonically ravishing... entertaining and virtuoso... Schwimmer doesn't hide his thousand and one influences, yet he's never a slave to them, by virtue of his innate musicality and fertile, inventive mind."
— Gramophone

With Beyond the Sky, composer, pianist and thereminist Rob Schwimmer offers a brilliant solo piano and theremin program based on his widely acclaimed album of the same name. An organic and musically rich journey from beginning to end, Beyond the Sky exists as a complete musical statement from the thoughtful to the thrilling, with many different musical ports of call in between. Schwimmer, a veteran player who has worked with beloved artists like Stevie Wonder, Simon and Garfunkel, Wayne Shorter and Antonio Carlos Jobim, pairs breathtaking originals — wordless songs, miniature suites and tone poems — with what he calls 'hallucinations on popular songs' offering music with a sensual core.

Writes Chip Stern, Editor at Playbill: "Beyond the Sky is piano music at the highest level of creativity and joy... Wry and ruminative, romantic and avant garde, minimalist yet expansive... Such is the scope of the storytelling canvas Schwimmer chooses to paint upon that his subtext is the entire history of the piano. That it sounds like a personal vision and not a cross-cultural collision is testament to the pianist’s probing rhythmic instincts and harmonic curiosity, his touch and articulation, the manner in which he is able to summon up in the course of a single passage, let alone an entire piece, a vision of the piano’s wide ranging stylist and structural expanse.

On selection after selection one can feel him emotionally ascending, towards freer and freer levels of expression... Indeed, Schwimmer seems to relish the idea of punching a musical ticket to destinations unknown, somewhere beyond the sky."