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· “All of the artists involved in this release are top-drawer. Jorge Federico Osorio makes a strong case for the Piano Concerto…. The Bingham Quartet plays superbly…and the BBC Singers, here joined by baritone Patrick Mason, as always, are outstanding. The Naxos recording is fully dimensional, and the notes by Dr. Neil Levin are, if it's possible, even more informative than usual…. Strongly recommended.” Fanfare

“Ms. Alsop’s chorus is fine, and the Colorado players do well enough to make us grateful that recordings like this are around.” New York Times

“The word 'chutzpah' might have been invented for Leonard Bernstein's Kaddish Symphony.
Not content with challenging the great deity in the sky, Bernstein also takes on the credo of 1960s 12-tone orthodoxies in his third symphony – a far greater sin in the eyes of some.
'Every son defies his father, fights him…only to return to him closer and more secure than before,' Bernstein wrote as he explained how Jewish theology informed his score. And as his speaker rages against God, down in the orchestra there's a furious debate about what Bernstein perceived as the crisis in modern music.
The raw material of Bernstein's score is a dialectical clash between paternal tonality and 'errant' 12-tone music, although it's hard to imagine a more hummable tone-row. This centrifugal tension powers the symphony on, and Gerard Schwarz conveys the unfolding drama with strategic clarity. Ironically in the circumstances, Bernstein's own pull-no-punches 1977 DG recording with the Israel PO must hang heavy over any conductor approaching the piece. One giant tick in Schwarz's plus-column is Willard White, a less mannered speaker than Bernstein's Michael Wager. The orchestra and voices, too, sound as if they're taking pleasure in Bernstein's highly inventive scoring, running the spectrum of his jazzy big-band swagger and post-Darmstadt atonal webs with ease.
In comparison to Kaddish's angst, ChichesterPsalms is a cathartic work that, to paraphrase, requires little more than reading the lines without tripping over the lopsided time signatures.
Schwarz energises the Technicolor opening movement, although choral vulnerabilities detract from the work's conclusion. None the less, a disc Bernstein fans will relish.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“The raw material of Bernstein's score is a dialectical clash between paternal tonality and 'errant' 12-tone music, although if anyone's written a more hummable tone-row I've yet to hear it. One giant tick in Schwarz's plus-column is Willard White, a less mannered speaker than Bernstein's Michael Wager. The orchestra and voices, too, sound as if they're taking pleasure in Bernstein's highly inventive scoring, running the spectrum of his jazzy big-band swagger and post-Darmstadt atonal webs with ease.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2006

“…once shorn of its polyphonic overgrowths, Babbit's music is open and witty stuff. He writes for each instrument accordingly to its talents, and listening to their different personalities is like attending a fantasy cocktail party where you meet one fascinating character after another without anyone else butting in. Whirled Series and Beaten Paths give up their secrets more readily than the other works here, perhaps because the instruments featured (saxophone and marimba) are as unaffected by tradition as the musical discourse.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2006

“These four violin and piano sonatas cover a period of almost 40 years. Bolcom gave up violin lessons with relief at the age of about 10 when his instrument was stolen from his father's car, but he has retained a strong affection for the fiddle and the sonatas represent his more serious side rather than the rumbustious ragtimer.
The First Sonata comes from 1956, Bolcom's freshman year at the University of Washington, Seattle, but was revised later. The Second Sonata arose 20 years later, after he met jazz violinist Joe Venuti, and it was completed in memoriam. In the first movement the violin sings in a gentle bluesy manner over regular patterns in the piano: 'Brutal', which follows, is as tough as anything in Ives. There are conventional triads in both the last two movements and the whole piece affectionately recalls some of Venuti's own licks.
The other two sonatas come from the mid- 1990s. The Third is subtitled Stamba ('Weird') and, admittedly, you never quite know what is going to happen next. A mini-scherzo is a scrap of tarantella, then the finale fuses tangos and Arab music,. The last one is another virtuoso piece, at times hyperactive, where everything is confidently delivered by this brilliant duo.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“chamber mastery” (The Sunday Times)

“Moravec manages the rare feat of writing music that sounds up-to-date and individual, but is also pleasingly accessible. I suspect that he will prove to be one of the most important American composers of his generation.” Fanfare