Clancy Newman... is an altogether extraordinary player. His technique is brilliant but not showy and so natural that one forgets about it; playing with impeccable intonation and great speed and facility, he projects a sense of absolute security. His tone is dark, warm, and intense, with remarkable carrying power even in a floating pianissimo. Equally striking is his mental and emotional concentration; his self-effacing commitment to the music speaks through every note.
[He is] not only an arresting performer, but also a talented composer and a courageous, enterprising program-maker. He stood conventional chronology on its head, playing the contemporary works in the first half and the standard fare in the second, and daringly began with the New York premiere of an unaccompanied composition of his own entitled Song Without Words... The piece is a technical tour de force, for naturally Newman the composer writes to the formidable strengths of Newman the cellist...
… Piazzolla’s Grand Tango brought the audience to its feet in unbridled enthusiasm, which was rewarded by several encores: first the Scherzo from the Shostakovich Sonata, then the latest of Mr. Newman's own compositions: written for unaccompanied right and left hand pizzicato, complete with chords, drones and runs, it is an incredible display of inventiveness and virtuosity and sounds like a whole section of slap basses. Mr. Newman calmed the audience's clamorous demand for more with the slow movement of the Chopin Sonata.