Arts Guides Fall 2019 Preview: South Jersey | Page 36

cash prize, career assistance and
professional engagements for two
years, including appearances at
the Indy Jazz Fest, representation
on a commercial CD jazz sampler
and a touring program.
“In retrospect I was still a rela-
tively unformed artist at that point
and had so much to learn, so in a
way I felt like I wasn’t quite ready
to be thrust into the limelight. It
takes a jazz artist years of refine-
ment to truly develop a unique
voice; it just doesn’t happen over-
night,” he reflects.
That same year he won the Cole
Porter Fellowship, Birnbaum be-
came the first jazz pianist to pres-
ent a recital at the prestigious
Gilmore Rising Stars Recital Series.
Since then Adam Birnbaum has es-
tablished a busy performing career
sharing the stage with the likes of
Brad Mehldau, Herbie Hancock,
Greg Osby, Regina Carter, Cécile
McLorin Salvant and Jazz at Lin-
coln Center with Wynton Marsalis.
2019 FALL PREVIEW
The great classical pianist Vladi-
mir Horowitz once said, “The dif-
ference between ordinary and
extraordinary is practice.” For
Birnbaum, practice time has varied
incredibly during the course of his
life. “I spent countless hours prac-
ticing in high school and college.
Now I have a crazy schedule and
two young children so practice
time does not come easily. I get it
in when it’s needed,” he admits.
In thinking of his upcoming
concert for Music at Bunker Hill,
Birnbaum says, “Bach was an im-
proviser, as were all the classi-
cal composers we revere, yet for
some reason classical musicians
today rarely improvise. I feel that
improvising on Bach is completely
consistent with what the composer
himself would do if he were here.”
For Birnbaum, who grew up learn-
ing classical music by ear, and then
expanding into the realm of jazz,
he doesn’t separate the two in his
mind. To him, it’s all just music.
w
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