Textura Magazine published a rave new review for Nadia Shpachenko’s Quotations and Homages recording:
“Rare, not to mention refreshing, is the classical recording that balances seriousness with humour. Certainly one composer who embodies the principle is Tom Flaherty, whose two pieces bookend the release. Their origins bespeak a scholarly mind at work, but as homages they’re delightfully irreverent, flamboyant even… As irreverent as it might be to root a composition in material by The Velvet Underground, the album’s most audacious pieces are Norton’s fifteen-second Piano Piece for Mr. Carter’s 100th Birthday (despite its brevity, a remarkably challenging miniature) and Borecki’s mirthful Accidental Mozart, which generates an increasingly woozy series of variations from a well-known theme.… Of the eight composers, the one who draws from the greatest number of inspirations is Ivanova, whose 6 Fugitive Memories references through quotations and allusions Ustvolskaya, Prokofiev, Feldman, Gubaidulina, Kurtág, Debussy, and Satie, and as such is the most stylistically wide-ranging of the works included. … As engaging as the many works on the recording are, perhaps my favourite is Mazzoli’s Bolts of Loving Thunder, for which the composer drew upon her memories of playing Brahms as a young pianist. Similar to Shpachenko, Mazzoli’s star is very much in the ascendant, and the engrossing work here, stormy, romantic, and fueled with high energy, shows why; Bolts of Loving Thunder also shows that nothing more than a single piano is needed when the compositional material in question is so strong and the musician involved is one of Shpachenko’s calibre. Needless to say, she executes all the material with conviction, her connection to the material unwavering no matter the works’ differences. Above all else, there’s joy in her playing, and it transfers infectiously to the listener.”