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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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	Concertos II by Kilpatrick, American Record Guide 07/30/2010 These concertos were commissioned by Sequitur, a New York new-music ensemble. Calling a piece for solo oboe with five players a concerto with chamber orchestra is a bit of a stretch, but that’s what Martin Matalon’s 15 minute Trame I (1997) is called here. It has five short movements where I, III, and V are built differently than II and IV. Matalon tells us what makes them different, but that’s helpful only if you really want to try to figure this complex little piece out. If not, sit back and listen to these new-music virtuosos show their stuff; it is very impressive. Oboist Jacqueline Leclair (faculty member at Bowling Green State University and the Manhattan School of Music) is assisted by bassoonist Peter Kolkay, horn player Dan Grabois, trumpeter Brian McWhorter, double bassist Kurt Muroki, and percussionist Matthew Gold. Steven Burke’s Over a Moving Landscape (2006) is a 15-minute concerto for bass clarinet with mixed nonet. The work came into being while Burke lived in a 9th-Century house where Picasso once lived and in the area where Van Gogh and Cezanne painted. Burke hopes it “conveys an unseen force, something more kinetic that imbues music with a unique power”. The first five minutes seem just that way: quiet but full of a restless, sweeping motion, not conventionally tonal but not unpleasant, either. Then things become animated, and if bass clarinetist Michael Lowenstern often seems to be part of the ensemble, we are at least aware that he is doing remarkable things. At 11 minutes the calmness of the opening returns, lulling us into thinking it will remain that way until the end. But no, first a twittering machine erupts for a few minutes, and then the work ends calmly. The final chord in low strings and harp is something to relish. Lowenstern’s ensemble consists of violinist Andrea Schultz, violist Dan Panner, cellist Caroline Stimson, bassist Muroki, flutist Patti Monson, clarinetist Jo-Ann Sternberg, horn player Grabois, percussionist Gold, and harpist June Han. Thin Ice (2006), by Ross Bauer (b 1951), best fits our notion that a concerto is a multi-movement work for soloist with orchestra. This four-movement, 23-minute piece is scored for solo cello with an orchestra of 14: woodwind quartet, brass trio, string quintet, harp, and percussion. I like Bauer’s brand of modernism; in a previous review, I said it is fascinating and superbly crafted with parts that place serious demands on the performers (Nov/Dec 2007). Ditto here, and these players are so good that you want to listen to them. Much of the piece has cellist Greg Hesselink playing long, impassioned lines and heading off in directions unknown. His lines are taken up and transformed by the ensemble. The sound is abstract, but there is such beauty in the ensemble parts that I find myself listening as much to it as to the soloist. It’s a little like a relay race where someone takes hold of a phrase someone else started, runs with it for a moment, and then passes it to the next person. It all happens so quickly and skillfully that we have to concentrate to notice it. In the livelier passages, these players make difficult lines sound easy. In the slow ones (especially the very slow III), their tone qualities make very dissonant sonorities sound beautiful. The orchestra in Thin Ice is the same as for Moving Landscape plus violinist Miranda Cuckson, oboist Leclair, and trombonist Ben Herrington. Read it here.

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