“Another winner for Crystal Records…all four [works] are entertaining and worth hearing. Indeed, I’ve been playing this recording compulsively since acquiring it a little more than a week ago…His playing leaves behind the mechanical issues of the trumpet and achieves the distinction of vocalism. It is as if he is singing through the trumpet, producing a big, warm sound when that is wanted, a subtle thinner sound when that is called for, all with the inflections of a master singer. There is a sense of relaxed confidence even in the most virtuosic passages, but also a sense of excitement and joy in the pure pleasure of playing these enchanting works.” Leonard Link, on the web, April 2007
John Holt is principal trumpet with the Dallas Opera Orchestra and trumpet professor at the University of North Texas. His first four CDs on Crystal received unanimous acclaim, with Gramophone Magazine describing him as “an elegant, sensitive artist.” The four concertos herein are a feast for the sensibilities: lyrical or dramatically expressive; rhythmically or harmonically nodding to the popularity of jazz; reflective of modern chamber music and symphonic music first heard in Paris in the 1920s; or expressing new ideologies.
