Classical-Modern Music Review‘s Grego Applegate Edwards asks, “Is Adam Schoenberg the American Sibelius?” in a new review for the Kansas City Symphony‘s latest recording:
“Is Adam Schoenberg the American Sibelius? Maybe. I haven’t heard such ravishingly beautiful, unabashed orchestral lyricism since the Finnish master put notes to paper. That is, on Adam’s new album of works American Symphony – Finding Rothko – Picture Studies. The Kansas City Orchestra under Michael Stern gives us its fully concentrated, fully idiomatic readings of the program. They seem ideally dedicated to bringing out the music’s broadly bright sonarities and subtly powerful climaxes. …it all comes out with such a gloriously gentle and alternatingly uproarish rapture, that we experience after a few listens something akin to what we feel after hearing a mature Sibelius symphony, or perhaps Copland’s glowing “Appalachian Spring.” … Here is a modern music that anybody might find beautiful. It has the ability to remain very approachable for almost anyone’s ears. And yet there is a great deal of innovative brilliance of substance in every bar. … Hear this music by all means. It is sorely needed in our troubled times!” —Grego Applegate Edwards, Classical-Modern Music Review