Max Cooke
Max Cooke's playing anchors decades of Team of Pianists recordings: Mozart sonatas and fantasies, Brahms for four hands and two pianos, and Sculthorpe's piano music shaped with melodic clarity and rhythmic charm.
As partner and director in the Team of Pianists he favours the shared keyboard. With Darryl Coote he takes the secondo line in Brahms's sixteen waltzes; elsewhere the catalogue finds him in Fauré's Dolly Suite, Schubert's F minor Fantasie, and Grainger for six hands on Teamwork, a disc praised for pianism stamped with individuality. His Mozart programme with Leonard Dommett keeps violin sonatas of real poise, joined by solo fantasies, the two-piano Sonata K. 448 and duet variations that still sound alive. On the Sculthorpe piano survey he and Coote draw out the charm of the miniature duets while the wider span runs from Night Pieces to Landscape and the scraped colours of Koto. He produces and arranges too, folding a Stolz song into the four-hand repertoire and Spanish colour into New Norcia. The sound is collegial, balanced and made for listening.
Press quotes
Team of Pianists provides a deep insight into Sculthorpe's work. All of the compositions give stimulus to the imagination, and the last three give incentive for compositional experiment. The performance by Max and Darryl Cooke highlights the melodious and rhythmic charm of these pieces... The excellent standard of performance penetrates varied facets of contemporary piano music.
Max Cooke is featured on the following titles
Teamwork
An eminently listenable collection of piano music for four and six hands. Romantic, brilliant and companionable by turns, it is an exciting, all-stops-out tour de force from the Team of Pianists.
Arranger
Producer
Performing as Team of Pianists
The Melbourne-based Team of Pianists is acclaimed for high standards of artistry and professionalism, and has captivated audiences in Australia and overseas for nearly twenty years through solo, chamber and concerto performance.
Peter Sculthorpe: Piano Music
Thirty years of piano music by Peter Sculthorpe, one of Australia's finest composers, in exemplary performances by the Team of Pianists, Michael Hannan and the composer himself.
New Norcia: A Spanish Rhapsody
The Team of Pianists present Spanish and Spanish-tinged piano music as a tribute to New Norcia’s Benedictine heritage, from Infante and de Falla to Ravel’s Rapsodie Espagnole.
Arranger
Team of Pianists presents the Schimmel K 256
Australia’s Team of Pianists inaugurates Schimmel’s Artist Collection on the new K 256 concert grand, with Brahms duets, Romantic and Impressionist solos, Saint-Saëns with clarinet, and Carl Vine.
Sparkling Keys
Sparkling Keys celebrates the creative partnership of the National Trust and the Team of Pianists. Over a decade that partnership produced Twilight Chamber Music at Rippon Lea and concerts at Como, Labassa, Illawarra and Barwon Park.
Worlds Apart
Worlds Apart gathers music for piano duet, two and three pianos from France and Australia. At its centre is the first Australian recording of Max Bruch’s Concerto for two pianos and orchestra.
Producer
Homage to Brahms
A handsome recital paying homage to Brahms, with two-piano variations, late Intermezzi, the G major Violin Sonata, and the complete Liebeslieder Walzer.
Producer
Mozart at Melbourne
Mozart works for piano and violin, two pianos, piano duet and solo piano, played by members of the Team of Pianists with guest violinist Leonard Dommett. 1967 sonata performances sit beside later keyboard sessions for the bicentenary.
Producer
Hamilton
The Team of Pianists present a programme of excellent piano works for solo, duo and two pianos, spanning popular classics and Australian repertoire.
Pianists of Excellence
The Team of Pianists is acclaimed in Europe and Australia for vitality and freshness of technique. This recital presents solo piano works by Haydn, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Brahms and Sculthorpe, played by four of its members.
Max Cooke also appears on
Peter Sculthorpe
A retrospective compilation of favourite chamber works by the late Peter Sculthorpe, drawn from Move’s own catalogue. Torres Strait song, Kakadu landscapes and intimate string writing are heard in performances by leading Australian musicians.
Cosmosis
The album explores the many combinations throat singing can take. Dean Frenkel pairs overtone singing with a children’s choir, guitar and mandolin, Australian birds, contemporary piano, vibraphone duet, and a female vocal duo in song form.
Other credits
Kevin Kanisius Suherman presents Schimmel Konzert 219
Kevin Kanisius Suherman presents the new Schimmel Konzert 219 concert grand in a recital that sets Romantic and early twentieth-century piano works beside his own arrangements of Indonesian song.
Kevin Kanisius Suherman plays Schimmel Konzert 280
Young pianist Kevin Kanisius Suherman presents a full recital of Schumann’s Carnaval, Liszt, Chopin and Beethoven, recorded on the new Schimmel Konzert 280 concert grand.
Kevin Kanisius Suherman plays Schimmel Konzert 213
For more than a century Schimmel pianos have delighted pianists and listeners. Here young pianist Kevin Suherman presents a recital of well-loved works chosen to display the Schimmel Konzert 213 concert grand.