Amazon.com - "Beautiful Piano music, warm and inviting. I was pleasantly surprised to find this CD so good. The music is original and very appealing. Anyone who enjoys classical piano would also enjoy this CD with it's musical vision of the Yosemite Valley."

The Yosemite Fund - "It was magical - an intimate performance by a talented artist with a celebrated legacy." (at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park)

20th Century Music - "Yosemite Sweet" - LushTone aptly describes the recording company, the pianist, and the composer. Think of an American Chopin or Debussy, lost in the American West, composing American preludes and arabesques -- and you have a picture of Siegfried Benkman, a composer in step with the natural, rather than urban, times. Benkman's "Yosemite Suite" lives and breathes both the salon and the wilderness, in rapturous depictions [of Yosemite]. Far from a "Grand Canyon Suite," this is a personal and romantic series of portraits for lovers of euphony. Pianist Noel Benkman plays with an aplomb and fluidity that only years of experience may allow.

Keyboard Magazine - Benkman deploys a sensitive coloristic technique on classical piano to share the compositions of his great-uncle Siegfried Benkman, who wrote these unabashedly Romantic pieces between the 1930's and the 1960's. One has the sense that for the elder Benkman, Debussy and Gershwin were a little too modern for comfort, but his old-school outlook didn't stop him from being a master of pianistic writing.

Tom Bopp, Yosemite Music & Art - ...beautiful writing and excellent performance - -truly a labor of love on both counts. Having listened to quite a lot of "Yosemite Music," Benkman's conceptions rise to the top; the only thing similar would be Emil Breitenfeld's "Sierra Sketches" (1925) and the song-cycle "Legends Of Yosemite" by H.J. Stewart (1910) -- recorded in "Vintage Songs of Yosemite."* One only laments that more composers of Siegfried Benkman's talents didn't take on the subject.

It is not surprising that the best (in my mind) Yosemite music should come out of the 30's, when such descriptive American music seemed to peak. It is not surprising (nonetheless disappointing) that the 90's should generate the kind of New-Age bookstore-dreck -- probably "composed" long before the unrelated Yosemite-titles had been stamped upon them--that is so prevalent today. For me, the best Yosemite music is that which expresses human experiences in the park, in all their variety, in a way that is genuine and heartfelt (which will hopefully excuse the wanton variety on my CD). Add to that the artfulness of a composer like Benkman, and the music transcends the style of the era, and becomes timeless.

* Note by Noel Benkman: Tom Bopp is a musical treasure for Yosemite. Tom Bopp's recording Vintage Songs Of Yosemite is a beautiful recording and of great historical value. I highly recommend it. It is available at the Yosemite Association too.