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Brion; 2 Songs from Silas Marner; Sindbad; Exiles
by Robert Carl, Fanfare Magazine 03/01/2011
Brion; 2 Songs from Silas Marner; Sindbad; Exiles
by Carson Cooman, Fanfare Magazine 03/01/2011
CD review: Harold Meltzer, "Brion, Sindbad, Exiles"
by Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle 10/31/2010
Sounds Heard: Harold Meltzer—Brion; Sindbad; Exiles
by Frank J. Oteri, New Music Box 10/26/2010
Concertos II
by Kilpatrick, American Record Guide 07/30/2010
The concertos for cello, solo bass clarinet and oboe makes this disc an inviting experiment in the contemporary concerto
by Robert Moon, Audiophile Audition 04/15/2010
Cellos Add Wordless But Lyrical Voices
by Allan Kozinn, New York Times 03/04/2008
Stylistic Wanderings and Flirtations With Multimedia And Jazz
by Allan Kozinn, New York Times 04/18/2007
Earthy Cuban Sounds, Rendered With An Urban Complexity
by Allan Kozinn, New York Times 01/10/2007
A Menu Of Familiar Signposts And A One-Woman Opera
by Anne Midgette, New York Times 04/02/2005
American Piano of the 1940s
by Jack Sullivan, American Record Guide 01/01/2005
Sequitur-Concertos
BBC Music Magazine 04/01/2004
Sequitur-Concertos
by Ian Quinn, American Record Guide 01/31/2004
Sequitur-Concertos
by Ken Smith, Gramaphone Magazine 01/01/2004
Sequitur -- Concertos (Albany)
by Christian Carey, splendidzine.com 01/01/2004
Sequitur-Concertos
by Steve Smith, Time Out New York 11/20/2003
Eclecticism and Humor in Works by Lewis Spratlan
by Allan Kozinn, The New York Times 11/14/2003
Meditations on Power, Old and Freshly
by Allan Kozinn, The New York Times 05/22/2003
Sequitur's new-music cabarets offer contemporary classics with theatrical flair
by Brian WIse, Time Out New York 05/15/2003
Music In Review: Sequitur
by Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times 05/24/2002
A High-Energy Romp Through The Raucous 1940's
by Anne Midgette, New York Times 10/27/2001
Seasons of Squawks on the Crows' Calendar
by Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times 03/01/2001
Two Flutists Explore the 20th-Century Repertory
by Allan Kozinn, The New York Times 10/28/2000
Concert Connects New With Newer
by Allan Kozinn, The New York Times 04/28/2000
Poetry as the Setting for Meditations on a Child's Death
by Allan Kozinn, The New York Times 11/16/1999
The Sound of the City
by Robert Hilferty, The Village Voice 01/26/1999
Music: Classical and New
by Rose Martelli, newyork.citysearch.com 01/18/1999
New Songs Spring Forth In a Lively Mixture
by Paul Griffiths, The New York Times 01/13/1999
A Cozy Cabaret Of Comical Sultriness
by Justin Davidson, New York Newsday 01/12/1999
Sequitur: George Crumb Concert
by Kenneth Goldsmith, New York Press 11/18/1998
Clash Of The Titans: Two Legendary Composers are Feted
by Ken Smith, Time Out New York 10/22/1998
Sequitur: Kaye Playhouse Concert
by Mark W. Greenfest, The New Music Connoisseur 05/18/1997
New Works Teeming With Fauna
by Allan Kozinn, The New York Times 02/22/1997
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Seasons of Squawks on the Crows' Calendar
by Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times 03/01/2001
When Lewis Spratlan won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for music for Act II of his opera "Life Is a Dream," which was performed only in concert, he assumed that some company would finally present a complete production of it. Though written in 1978, it was still unproduced. Inexplicably, no company has yet offered.
Thanks to the adventurous contemporary-music ensemble Sequitur, he has at least had his first major New York premiere in more than 10 years, the chamber work "When Crows Gather" (1986). It opened Sequitur's bracing program on Tuesday night at Merkin Concert Hall, which was nearly packed.
Scored unusually for violin, cello, piano and three clarinets, "When Crows Gather" was inspired by an incident one December morning when a throng of crows gathered in some trees outside Mr. Spratlan's studio in western Massachusetts and led him to some musical ruminations about the seasons. In the onrushing opening section, the instruments evoke wintry winds through swooshing, darting thematic lines, before the music settles into a loopy dance.
An Ivesian episode follows in which choralelike evocations of summertime parlor songs and a near-inaudible piano rag are jabbed by spiky counterpoint for strings. The whole ends with what could be called the "Crow Squawk Toccata." But the sense of whimsy is undercut by Mr. Spratlan's complex and gritty harmonic language. The arresting piece was conducted by Paul Hostetter.
In "The Trick Is to Keep Breathing," a world premiere, the composer, Randall Woolf, inventively incorporates the sounds of a turntable artist, which is what practitioners of the scratching technique introduced by rock D.J.'s and rappers are now being called. The scratched recorded sounds of a string quartet were bounced off a live amplified quartet playing the same alternately sweet-tempered and grating music. Christina Wheeler sang a text by Valeria Vasilevski in an unintelligible and deadpan style. The piece is an indulgent jumble, though Mr. Woolf has a keen ear and irreverent wit.
There was also too much going on at once in "Nu Kuan Tzu" (1996) by Mathew Rosenblum, scored for 11 instruments, taped elements and two singers. The work giddily fuses equal-temperament and microtonal tunings, evocations of pop and French Impressionism, and texts ranging from ancient Chinese poetry to Rimbaud. Mr. Rosenblum has technique and a vivid imagination. But this sometimes crazy, sometimes dreamy score made the best impression when the least dense. The performance under Mr. Hostetter was again compelling. |
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