Archive for Review – Page 9
Blues Blast Magazine Strongly Recommends Fiona Boyes’ “Blues In My Heart”
The latest issue of Blues Blast Magazine has a strong recommendation for Fiona Boyes’s Blues in my Heart 20th Anniversary Edition recording: “Fiona Boyes truly stands out from the crowd… With a hard-to-define style that blends everything from Delta and swamp to Chicago blues and more, Fiona exploded onto the world blues scene with the original analog version of this CD, which was self-produced and released on her own label. … The twelfth album in…
Atlanta Audio Society Reviews Kansas City Symphony’s Leshnoff Recording
Phil Muse reviews The Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern, Stephen Powell, and Joyce Yang’s recording of Leshnoff: Symphony No. 3; Piano Concerto in the Atlanta Audio Society‘s December Newsletter: “Once again, an exploration of the music of American composer Jonathan Leshnoff proves rewarding. … What makes this composer so distinguishable from his contemporaries is easy to divine: it is the concentrated emotion, the lyricism, cohesive construction, and economy of his music. In the last-cited, Leshnoff…
Fanfare Reviews Pittsburgh Symphony’s Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4 & Leshnoff Double Concerto
Jerry Dubins reviews the Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck’s recording of Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4; Leshnoff: Double Concerto for clarinet and bassoon in the November/December 2020 issue of Fanfare Magazine: “[Leshnoff’s Double Concerto] is gloriously beautiful and quite possibly a masterpiece, though that judgment will have to be left to time. … If Leshnoff’s aim was to ensure that the bassoon would emerge as the clarinet’s equal, he suceeded admirably. Nancy Goeres huffs and puffs…
Living Blues Reviews Fiona Boyes Blues in My Heart
Living Blues reviews Fiona Boyes’ 20th Anniversary Digitally Remastered release, Blues in my Heart: “One listen, and well, yeah, she’s blues alright, that and then some. There are not enough acoustic blues women, and even less who compose their own songs at her level. She graces the genre with the remastered 20th anniversary edition of her first solo recording, Blues in My Heart. Listeners will appreciate the generous helping of 18 songs on this CD,…
The Arts Fuse Reviews Kansas City Symphony’s Jonathan Leshnoff Symphony No. 3 and Piano Concerto
The Arts Fuse reviews Kansas City Symphony’s recording of Jonathan Leshnoff Symphony No. 3 and Piano Concerto with Stephen Powell and Joyce Yang: “The Concerto’s first movement alternates motoric and lyrical subjects, its constant shifts of phrases and harmonies keeping the ear from ever getting too comfortable. “Neshema,” the slow second movement, offers a beautiful, falling tune that’s gradually embellished. The Scherzo, with its frolicsome keyboard writing and nifty transformations of orchestral textures, charms throughout.…
Textura Reviews Kansas City Symphony’s Leshnoff Symphony No. 3 and Piano Concerto
Textura Magazine reviews Jonathan Leshnoff’s Symhony No. 3 and Piano Concerto recording featuring the Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern, Stephen Powell, and Joyce Yang: “Any classical pianist hearing the concerto would likely salivate at the prospect of performing it. In this iteration, Joyce Yang delivers a riveting performance others would be hard pressed to better. … The opening movement dazzles from the start, with Yang expertly voicing chiming figures over insistent strings and the syncopated…
Kansas City Symphony’s Jonathan Leshnoff World Premieres Get 5 Stars from Audiophile Audition
Audiophile Audition‘s Steven Ritter gives ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ to Leshnoff: Symphony No. 3 and Piano Concerto recording from the Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern, Stephen Powell, and Joyce Yang: “After reviewing Leshnoff’s Double Concerto for Clarinet and Bassoon recently on another marvelous Reference issue, I was most intrigued to see what was coming next. … Leshnoff writes from the heart, but with a lot of craft and intelligence. Speaking of Samuel Barber, I think he resembles that master somewhat…
Music Notes Review for Blessed Art Thou Among Women
Rafael de Acha’s Music Notes site reviews the PaTRAM Institute’s Blessed Art Thou Among Women recording: “Works by Rachmaninoff along compositions by Gretchaninoff, Tcherepnin, and several other musical artists that lived and worked in the past two or more centuries enrich the CD Blessed Art Thou Among Women, a wonderfully varied collection of devotional texts in praise of the Virgin Mary set to choral music and superbly sung by the PaTRAM Institute Singers, led by Peter…
Pizzicato Highly Recommends Kansas City Symphony’s Leshnoff World Premieres
Pizzicato gives a four-star rating to Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern, Stephen Powell, and Joyce Yang’s recording of Jonathan Leshnoff’s Symphony No. 3 and Piano Concerto: “Jonathan Leshnoff’s music needs no explanation, as it speaks for itself and immediately appeals to the listener. Although it is quite complex, it is imaginatively and brilliantly orchestrated and to be remembered with very reflective passages as well as with rhythmic pulsation. … It is again evident in Leshnoff’s four-movement…
Classical Voice North America Reviews Kansas City Symphony’s Leshnoff World Premieres
Classical Voice North America reviews the Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern, Stephen Powell, and Joyce Yang’s world premiere recordings of Jonathan Leshnoff’s Symphony No. 3 and Piano Concerto: “The long-lined legato strings that open the symphony immediately bring to mind works like Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings with its tonal modulations and harmonically resolved suspended chords. It is meditative mood music. The winds, including a contrabassoon, briefly create an unusual, dark balance. French horns, trombones, winds doubling…
Classical CD Choice Review for Leshnoff Symphony No. 3 and Piano Concerto
Classical CD Choice reviews the Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern, Stephen Powell, and Joyce Yang recording of Jonathan Leshnoff’s Symphony No. 3 and Piano Concerto: “In typically wide-ranging Reference Recordings sound, here are two of the composer’s most impressive works, and the Third Symphony in particular will be relished by those who admire such 20th-century composers as Vaughan Williams, Walton and Copland. It is music of great authority (inspired by World War I letters home,…
Five Stars for Leshnoff’s Symphony No. 3 and Piano Concerto from HRAudio
HRAudio.net gives the Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern, Stephen Powell, and Joyce Yang ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for Performance and Sonics in their recording of Jonathan Leshnoff’s Symphony No. 3 and Piano Concerto: “The opening of the [Piano Concerto’s] four movements presents a majestic (and attractively memorable) theme that is developed with increasing energy and dazzling pianism by soloist and orchestra in the manner of a grand romantic concerto before reaching a humorously abrupt ending. The slow movement…
American Record Guide Reviews Blessed Art Thou Among Women
American Record Guide reviews the PaTRAM Institute’s recording of Blessed Art Thou Among Women in the September/October 2020 Issue: “Depsite the common ethnicity and theme, the music covers so much ground chronologically and stylistically that the program stays interesting. … Rachmaninoff’s ‘Theotokos Ever-Vigilant’ sings out with the lush, spiritually-charged harmonies we know from his Vespers. There’s also a delicate embrace of the Sacred Feminine in ‘All of Creation Rejoices’ by Nikolai Mihailovich Danilin… I don’t…
Rafael’s Music Notes Reviews The Kansas City Symphony’s Leshnoff Recording!
The first review is in for the Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern, Stephen Powell, and Joyce Yang’s Leshnoff World Premiere Recordings! “Thanks to various CD’s released by Reference Recordings, I have become an admirer of the music of American composer Jonathan Leshnoff. … The impressive lineup of soloists and the sterling work of the Kansas musicians numbers immense artistic rewards in this treasure of a recording, impeccably engineered and produced by Dirk Sobatka of Soundmirror. ……
Fanfare Reviews Pittsburgh Symphony’s Tchaikovsky & Leshnoff
Fanfare Magazine reviews Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4 & Leshnoff Double Concerto recording in the September/October 2020 issue: “Manfred Honeck has a special talent for making recordings. …A Honeck release is a documentarian’s dream. Musicologists will never have to puzzle over what he meant to achieve, as historians still do with storied conductors of the past. I wish more were like him. … Honeck’s take on the Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony…