Hemsing Associates

Clearly identifying with the work’s anguished message, cello soloist Kristina Reiko Cooper (USA-Israel) impressively projected its melodic asymmetry – as much with her formidable stage presence as with skillfully nuanced and chilling cries drawn from the cello. Both performer and composer of this recently written concerto received a well-deserved ovation at its close.
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Paul Jacobs to play at Saint Vincent Archabbey with PSO

April 24, 2025 Brad Hundt, Observer-Reporter

It was 25 years ago this July that Paul Jacobs broke into the national consciousness with an act that combined deep musical knowledge and sheer stamina…he quickly became a force to be reckoned with in the classical music world.
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ESO and organist Paul Jacobs: review

April 15, 2025 Mark Morris - Edmonton Scene

…Jacobs indeed pulled out all the stops. big, blaring, extrovert, showing off the voices and the power of the organ.
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A sense of awesomeness: Organist Paul Jacobs in Eugene

April 10, 2025 Oregon ArtsWatch

Jacobs was in his element with his favorite composer. “Bach inspires me every day,” he said in the interview. With his feet pedaling and dancing at a mighty clip, his hands crossing over – and all this by memory – he wrung the majesty out of Bach. Too much praise? Nope. His gracious nature, colored with whimsey, makes him almost as much of a draw as his musical prowess, boundless expressiveness and prodigious memory. No wonder his concerts are almost always sold out.
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Three by Chumbley plus Brahms in Review

April 8, 2025 Jeffrey Williams - New York Concert Review

Mr. Chumbley writes that Serenade takes the form of a fantasy, with the melodic material “sung” in the clarinet and cello, while the piano provides harmonic and rhythmical support. This ten-minute work is meditative and lyrical, emphasizing melodic coloring over virtuosic gymnastics. Ms. Petrella and Ms. Mallow were lovely “singers,” as they passed and shared thematic material.
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WA Sinfonietta in Review

March 27, 2025 Jeffrey Williams - New York Concert Review

The first movement felt like a love poem to the instrument, exploiting all its facets and capabilities. The lightness of the second movement was executed expertly by Mr. Neidich and Mr. Shams, whose collaboration throughout the program was top notch to say the least! The triumphant ending was full of joy and was met with a roaring applause from the audience.
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Ian Hobson: The Complete Schumann Piano Works – Colorful Album Leaves in Review

March 24, 2025 David Wright - New York Classical Review

…his ability to convey the big picture, painting his interpretations in broad brushstrokes, with an architect’s grasp and without fussiness or self-indulgence. Generally one might not expect such a pianist to handle well all the delicate fluctuations of these miniatures – as Schumann can be rather “needy” – but what Mr. Hobson brought to them on this occasion was a refreshing clarity, perhaps akin to his conductor’s overview. In any case, it was welcome. We could enjoy the vista of hills and valleys without getting too lost in the flurry of foliage.
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WA Sinfonietta makes energetic debut with Neidich as conductor-soloist

March 24, 2025 David Wright - New York Classical Review

Having described the piece to the audience as “more opera than concerto,” Neidich made good on his words with a long-breathed, deeply affecting Adagio any onstage heroine would be proud of. Orchestral strings echoed his sighing phrases, then warmly reprised the entire theme, whose hushed return later was an expressive high point. Soloist and orchestra made the most of the rondo finale’s playful theme and picturesque episodes.
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Wa Concert Series presents Wind Miniatures in Review

March 16, 2025 Walter Aparicio - New York Cconcert Review

Driver brings a myriad of illumination to Carnegie recital

March 14, 2025 Kathryn Felt - New York Classical Review

Driver played the final variation’s trills with quiet intensity and weightlessness. Less an ending than a transformation, they echoed Ligeti’s rhythmic illusions, Schumann’s sonorities, now deconstructed, and Handel’s ornaments–stretched to infinity. In this final gesture, Beethoven distilled the evening’s theme: how music never truly resolves, but remains an open-ended dialogue.
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New common ground: Danny Driver comes to Carnegie Hall

February 10, 2025 Peter Quantrill - Bachtrack

Driver’s catalogue of recordings bears witness to the breadth of his repertoire, from Handel to Ligeti. Both composers find their place on a concert programme in the Key Pianists series at Carnegie Hall, alongside works by Beethoven, Schumann, Fauré and Gabriela Lena Frank. Drawing lines across time between these composers comes to him readily and spontaneously.
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A Conversation with Charles Neidich

February 4, 2025 Rorianne Schrade - New York Concert Review

The preeminent clarinetist Charles Neidich took time out of his busy day recently to chat with New York Concert Review about the imminent return of his extremely popular WA Concert Series and, what’s more, the creation of a new and innovative orchestra in New York, the WA Sinfonietta, with concerts in March and May under the auspices of the newly established Artena Foundation. Big things are afoot!
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OQUIN; PARKER; ROUSE Organ Concertos (Paul Jacobs)

November 2024 David Gutman - Gramophone

… the participation of the stellar American organist Paul Jacobs, here framing recent material composed expressly for him
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Han’s playing was deeply impressive. There was a real measure of understanding here. Music that requires so much focus and physical skill can turn the details of performance into sheer effort, but Han still held onto a great balance of force and care. She kept on the side of letting all the notes work together, rather than just showing what her hands can do, and one heard how fine were both the composing and her musicality.
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Tonight’s concert was a rare and remarkable experience, bringing together a complete performance of these cherished works. It is hard to imagine having the opportunity to hear these pieces presented collectively in a single recital again. Mr. Hobson’s dedication to Robert Schumann and his artistry made the evening truly special.
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Haydn’s Piano Trio in C major is mostly a piano feature. Brown uncovered a reverberant, chocolatey tone in the quiet sections. He then brought boisterous energy, supported by Boyd and Finckel, to the nearly perpertual-motion triplet passages of the wearing first movement.
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A personal surprise–and my unalloyed favorite of the evening–was the humbly named C Major Trio. Violinist Aaron Boyd, cellist David Finckel and pianist Michael Steven Brown launched into a work which, for sheer happiness, ebullience, almost drunken spirits, could not be improved.
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Paul Jacobs: Organ Concertos Naxos

September 2024 Ron Schepper - Textura

...the interweaving of organ and orchestra proves arresting, as does their frequent call-and-response. The pairing of Jacobs' thick chords and the ensemble makes for a huge sound, but there are passages of comparative quietude too.
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The short second movement [of Horatio Parker’s Organ Concerto] provides an interval of surprising delicacy and refinement, while the finale is broad, wide-ranging and emphatic and played by Jacobs with considerable flair and expressive panache…Jacobs does not overplay the work [Ives’s Variations on “America”], but explores it with mostly serious engagement (albeit with appropriate lightness in the third variation and the “Polonaise” fourth) and a fine sense of its overall structure.
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Paul Jacobs, the day’s reigning organ virtuoso, knows it well and he’s assayed a fascinating assortment of Americana on his latest release for Naxos…Jacobs’ performance of Ives’ Variations on “America” offers just about everything you could ask for. It’s raucous and anarchic, yes (the “Polonaise” is a hoot), but also steeped in nobility and sincerity. Rarely does the final variation exhibit the swaggering majesty it does under Jacobs’ hands and feet.
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Organ Concertos Works by Ives, Parker, Rouse and Wayne Oquin

September 3, 2024 Geoff Brown - BBC Music Magazine

...the excellent Paul Jacobs gives a delightful performance, vigorously supported by Giancarlo Guerrero’s brightly polished Nashville Symphony, stripped of woodwinds in Parker’s scoring – something that only makes the organ’s tones stand out with extra clarity…All told, this is a most attractive album.
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The Bach Choir has for 125 years prided itself as being part of the rich Moravian cultural history, a foundation that gives special cachet to the city of Bethlehem.
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America's oldest Bach Choir, the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, has announced that the Moravian Church Settlements of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, have just been granted UNESCO World Heritage status. The Bach Choir has for 125 years prided itself as being part of the rich Moravian cultural history, a foundation that gives special cachet to the city of Bethlehem.
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Mr. Hobson, whose playing has been described by Gramophone as "intensely alive to expressive nuance, textural clarity and elastic shaping," is the first pianist to take on the monumental undertaking of recording the complete piano works of Frederick Chopin.
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The festival will feature the world premiere of pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown’s “The Lotos-Eaters” for Flute, Cello, Piano, and Percussion, inspired by the Tennyson poem of the same name, and his composition “Relationship” for clarinet and violin.
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One the country’s finest choirs for Bach and persuasive ambassadors for American music
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Discover Los Angeles: Paul Jacobs Organ Recital

July, 2024 Discover Los Angeles

If anyone deserves to be called the greatest showman, it's organ virtuoso Paul Jacobs” (Broad Street Review). Jacobs returns for a program that highlights the technical intricacies of Bach and the Romantic charisma of Liszt.
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The world premieres of two BCM-commissioned works, Michael Stephen Brown’s “The Lotos-Eaters” for Flute, Cello, Piano, and Percussion, inspired by the Tennyson poem of the same name…expand the festival’s theme of transformation..
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Times of London The best classical album so far

May 22, 2024 The Times London

Bach Choir of Bethlehem recording Mendelssohn & Bach: Matthaus-Passion: There’s something equally homely and straightforward about the whole performance. Jackson’s forces give us commitment and heart, not affectation… It’s all fascinating and endearing.
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Brown excelled at simultaneously defining texture and movement throughout the sonata. Again, my thoughts flew to atmospheric metaphors: His light pianistic touch sent Rachmaninoff’s rich chords billowing out like storm clouds, but his precise articulation of the composer’s melodies gave those cumulonimbi distinct, bright edges.
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Despite their brevity, each piece managed to convey a rich emotional world, and Mr. Hobson’s performance skillfully brought out their essence, with a lush sound and meticulous attention to each entrance… Hobson also treated us to a program full of passion, vigor, and commitment. He will be performing another all-Schumann recital on Friday, May 10 also at the Tenri Cultural Institute. Do not miss this remarkable musician!
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In his magisterial performance [of Charles Ives’s Variations on America], Jacobs hammed up the movements’ vivid personalities: the merry-go-round naïveté of the third, the pompous polonaise in the fourth, and the sulking dirges of the interludes, some of the teenage Ives’s earliest forays into bitonality. After a final variation that demands the same fleet feet as the Toccata, Jacobs’s Variations arguably drew even more spirited applause than the main event.
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The pianists presented the first movement [of Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D major]’s dense textures with authority. In its “conversationality” this movement actually feels fugue-like in places. Brown and Golka had virtuosity to spare for its flurries of scales… The performance captured the fullness of the beauty of the piece.
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Jacobs, a frequent guest of the CSO, utilized the full spectrum of colors available on the midsize, 3,400-pipe instrument, changing registrations so the melody emerged from different parts of the hall, finding a spooky whistle rank to color a hair-raising passage, and rumbling the rafters with the 32-foot stops. His encore, Charles Ives' Variations on America for solo organ – about half the duration of the Barber – showcased the palette even further, at turns hymnic, jaunty, silly, squirrelly, constipated and ballparky.
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Canellakis-Brown Duo To Perform In Los Alamos April 21

April 14, 2024 Los Alamos Daily Post

Presented by the Los Alamos Concert Association (LACA), cellist Nicholas Canellakis and pianist Michael Stephen Brown will play a program that celebrates the standard repertoire, little-known gems and their own compositions and arrangements.
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Cellist Nicholas Canellakis and pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown brought their inimitable wit, humor and infectious rapport to the stage, captivating the audience with superb musicianship and a thrilling performance.
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An enjoyable performance…Mendelssohn’s version of the St Matthew Passion was a pioneering effort, appropriate for its time and place.
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Brown explained that the program “will include the D major Sonata for piano four hands, whose moods range from poignancy to slapstick humor; some of Mozart’s hilarious and bawdy canons; and excerpts from the notoriously crude letters he wrote to a girlfriend. As man and artist, Mozart was devoted to joie de vivre, and the concert will paint a portrait of him at his most high-spirited.”
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Classic and rarely-heard chamber music is coming to Lewes this weekend. Coastal Concerts will present the "Wild Card" concert Saturday at 2 p.m. at Bethel United Methodist Church. It features a duo made up of pianist Michael Stephen Brown and cellist Nicholas Canellakis.
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Cellist Nicholas Canellakis and pianist Michael Brown comprise the Canellakis-Brown Duo, set to perform on the Coastal Concerts stage in Lewes April 6.
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Canellakis-Brown Duo Delivers Fun at Trinity School

March 23, 2024 The Millbrook Independent

Although the sound is more opulent, this romantic arrangement still breathes the spirit of Bach. Conductor To hear merely ten seconds of this style of music might make your hair want to stand up on end. For both piano and cello this was the closer to outflank any program closer. The audience was overwhelmed with joy!
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Although the sound is more opulent, this romantic arrangement still breathes the spirit of Bach. Conductor Christopher Jackson takes this into account and allows his instrumental ensemble to play in an unaffected, agile manner.
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What I loved most about Liebermann’s new concerto is that it has a marvelous sense of propulsion to it. Whether the tempo is fast or slow, the music unfolds like a ribbon caught in a breeze. There is clear shape and purpose and swirling beauty.
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Liebermann’s blueprint certainly ticks all the concerto checkboxes — soloistic liberty in the first, sweeping pensiveness in the second, and quicksilver virtuosity in the third. Höskuldsson met each benchmark with not just ease but palpable satisfaction — a snug fit between commission and dedicatee.
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And now to Liebermann’s work for the flute that soared on the brilliant playing of Höskuldsson. The first of its three movements opened with a flute solo at once emotional and pensive…There was a grandeur and romanticism to the piece as it developed, with the fast and fluid sound of Höskuldsson’s flute generating a lush orchestral response.
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Based on the resounding success of Thursday night’s premiere of Liebermann’s Flute Concerto No. 2, the American composer has come up with another winner. This engaging, richly tuneful and soloist-friendly work is a virtual certainty to become a popular addition to the scant flute concerto repertory.
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Regarding “Poème,” Canellakis rightly opines that this early, unpublished evocation sounds more like Debussy than Copland; regardless, it's a lovely romantic exercise whose hush showcases the musicians' exceptional command of their instruments. Here and elsewhere, the rapport between the two amplifies the lyrical tenderness of the material…As composers, Brown distinguishes himself with Prelude and Dance, its first part enticing for its reflective, serene character and its second arresting for its hellacious drive.
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There’s something equally homely and straightforward about the whole performance. Jackson’s forces give us commitment and heart, not affectation.
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Brown’s manner was ideal for Debussy’s Hommage à Haydn and Ravel’s Menuet sur le nom d’Haydn. Precise articulation in fluid phrasing, a sense of forward motion, and just the right amount of time lingering on the most colorful sonorities, all served the intellect and charm in the music... His playing was exceptional, natural and immaculate… He finished the first half with a fantastic performance of Miroirs. Playing fleetly but with every note presented precisely, his pedaling and balance between percussive and legato articulations were perfect; one was enveloped in the sheer sound and mysteries of this wonderful piece.
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Esteemed pianist and composer Michael Stephen Brown, celebrated for his 2018 Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center, is set to dazzle Redlands with two performances. This unique musical endeavor, hosted by the Redlands Symphony Orchestra, showcases Brown's versatility both as a solo artist and as a concerto soloist, providing audiences with a rich tapestry of classical compositions.
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Jacobs’ performance embodied the interplay between Bach’s earnestness and spirit, intensity and lightness as he moved seamlessly and with perfect confidence through the work.
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To hear these disjunct roles achieved by a single player is amazing, and the way Mr. Neidich concluded the work with that final idée fixe note after a long rest made it hard not to gasp in reaction... That is communication through music, and that is what one has come to expect from WA concerts.
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NEP Piques Our Interest

February 29, 2024 Boston Music Intelligencer

A piece with this title requires Bach’s prime instrument, the organ, and a very skilled player thereof, in this case, fortunately, Paul Jacobs.
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A Conversation with Lowell Liebermann

February 26, 2024 The Flute Examiner

Composer Lowell Liebermann is beloved in our community for his many works that feature the flute in all its lyrical, colorful, technical beauty. On the eve of the premiere of his second flute concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Flute Examiner’s Keith Hanlon had the opportunity to speak with him about his background, his future and his music.
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Chamber Music Detroit welcomes composer Michael Stephen Brown March 1 in Rochester Hills. “It’s going to be a fun showcase of a variety of different styles of piano repertoire from different periods,” Brown said.
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Pianist Thomas Nickell in Review

February 19, 2024 New York Concert Review

Mr. Nickell dealt with these issues with a sure technique, never letting the energy flag while maintaining a musical sense throughout. It’s not an easy task, and it’s also something of a high-risk, low-reward proposition that many pianists would not take on in performance..
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One of the best feelings in the world is when you can trust the soloist. You know it from the first note they play. You sink into your chair, forget about the audience around you, and take a deep breath out, knowing you are in good hands. That is what I experienced Saturday afternoon at Merkin Hall in Manhattan, where Ursula Oppens, her partner, Jerome Lowenthal, and six other pianists played a group recital of pieces written for Oppens over the years.
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Thank you, Mr. Neidich and Mr. Levin for giving me the luxury of taking off my “critic” hat and putting on my “music lover” hat… The audience knew it was something special as well, and gave the duo the proper respect of a loud ovation.
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Oppens’ closing duet with Lowenthal was a fitting nightcap. The presence of two bodies on the bench working together in seamless creativity encapsulated the concert’s theme, “Ursula & Friends.” It signified the importance of community in the musical world of these eight composers, these eight pianists, and the audiences that have supported them and their many infinitely creative colleagues over the past half-century.
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Oppens marks 80 years delightfully with friends and music

February 4, 2024, New York Classical Review

Pianist Ursula Oppens has been one of the most important voices in contemporary American music for the past 50 years…Oppens’ spirit and her technique at the keyboard show no concessions to age. She beams with a sense of welcoming delight, and the tender lyricism of Old and Lost Rivers, a juxtaposition of regret and peacefulness, came through with a limpid simplicity.
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That kind of modesty has been mixed in with mastery throughout Oppens’s long, distinguished career. With crystalline lucidity, warm sensitivity and utter authority, she has guided generations of listeners through the seductive complexities of Wuorinen and Elliott Carter, Anthony Davis and Conlon Nancarrow, Frederic Rzewski and Joan Tower, and on and on.
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Oppens, who has commissioned so much music that she has almost single-handedly shaped the direction of the American piano repertoire in the last half century, is a wellspring of musical insight, wisdom, and humility.
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As enrapturing as it would be to hear the recording's intimate material performed live, it feels almost tailor-made for home listening where one might surrender to its charms from the comfort of a cozy living room. As Liebermann himself states, “Many of his pieces are of such a delicate and exquisite nature that their beauties seem to have been meant to be appreciated in solitude, played late into the night for one's own enjoyment. There is a fragile purity and direct simplicity to some of them that make an audience an unwanted intrusion”
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Let’s Talk Music Podcast Interview: Andrew Arceci

December 27, 2024 Let’s Talk Music

Lowell Liebermann, himself a gifted pianist/composer, has done Kirchner a major favor by rediscovering half a dozen of his piano groupings and making them available in finely honed, thoroughly sensitive readings on the Blue Griffin Recordings label.
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Pianist Lin at her best in intimate, nostalgic music

December 3, 2024 New York Classical

Lin brought a fine sensibility and assured touch to works rarely heard in recitals because of their inward-looking, non-showy character, despite being by masters of the caliber of Glass, Shostakovich and Stravinsky.
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Beginning solemnly, the hushed movement highlights the effectiveness of Ponthus' gentle touch, and the extended duration allows for a patient delivery and sensitive tempo fluctuations. The closing movement naturally reinstates the dynamism of the first, even if it does begin gently before swelling into a polyphonic storm teeming with trills, manic energy, and spiraling activity. The moment it subsides is jarring in its suddenness, but the pace accelerates almost instantly thereafter to push the movement to its exciting finish.
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The release of Lowell Liebermann's works for violin and orchestra brings with it a number of auspicious firsts: all four are world premiere recordings, and it's also the debut recording of the Kazakh State Symphony Orchestra (KSSO).
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Liebermann’s performances are engaging here and captured in a rich sound that enhances the darker sonorities of the Steinway used in this recording. The release is a wealth of fascinating piano music of the 1870s, that decade where music seemed to pause to catch its breath in the shadows of the early Romantics and before the explosion of new chromaticism and sounds that were on the horizon.
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Ponthus’s shaping of the rapid scales allows you not only to hear the notes but to grasp melodic signposts. Every short downward glissando has a different colour, while the staccato clusters emerge as stars in a sonic constellation, rather than random percussive hits… Ponthus truly inhabits this work, both pianistically and emotionall.
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Ponthus’ performance is a stunning one with a sense of shape and inner understanding that comes forth in this recording… Bridge’s release is a stellar one with excellent notes and sound helping to fully support a performance that listeners will likely return to repeatedly. It is a release not to be missed.
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If you were looking to hear hitherto uncharted piano music similar to Brahms or Schumann's, from an unjustly neglected composer, you can't do better than this. Thumbs-up to Lowell Liebermann and producer Sergei Kvitko at Blue Griffin for offering something new, different and yet traditional, for us to enjoy.
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Ian Hobson led the members of the Sinfonia da Camera in a well-focused, idiomatic reading of Strauss’ waltz-inflected score, and cohesion between singers and orchestra was firmly maintained throughout…Also, stepping out of his role as conductor, Hobson crossed the stage to the left side and gave an awesome performance of “Carnaval de Vienne,” by famous virtuoso Moritz Rosenthal (1862-1946). This is a potpourri of J. Strauss’ melodies, with a passing reference to “Fledermaus,” all ornamented so densely with runs and trills that only players of the highest level of skills can do it. Like Herrera’s topping bulls, Hobson slew the keyboard dragon.
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The warmth of the choir was complemented by the joy the musicians in the orchestra were clearly taking in all their important solos – perhaps the fact that each was an expert in playing Bach ‘the way Bach would have played it’ had doubled their pleasure in playing Bach the way Mendelssohn would have played it.
After a tremendous earthquake, (conductor Christopher) Jackson brought the Passion home with an ending so deeply satisfying that I knew if this were the only St. Matthew Passion we had, I would survive.
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The Scherzo was all dancing lightness, with a feathery touch from Brown at the keyboard and playful interplay from both string players. All three gave a determined edge to the Finale, taken at a crisp, rapid pace, with an especially beautiful minor section in the middle.
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"It's a great place for a concert series like this," says Artistic Director and composer Lowell Liebermann. "Certainly, the venue is terrific, they have that magnificent organ that has just been renovated. And they've just acquired an absolutely gorgeous Steinway concert grand piano. It's a big deal."
The organ is in equally good hands for its return. Grammy Award-winning organist Paul Jacobs will begin the series with a program of Bach, Mozart, and contemporary works. Jacobs has played churches and concert halls all over the world, and he says one of the joys of his job is that every stage and organ is different.
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Tucson classical music stages feature choir, piano recital

October 31, 2023 Arizona Daily Star

Pianist/composer Michael Stephen Brown is slipping in a few of his own works in his Arizona Friends of Chamber Music recital on Wednesday, Nov. 8, including a piece he wrote for right hand only.
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Mr. Hobson proceeded to No. 3 making it sound easy overall. Despite rapid alternation of octaves and trills – requiring lumberjack and ballet dancer – Mr. Hobson was up to it all… it was an epic undertaking, amazingly handled – all “chased down” with Schumann’s diabolically difficult Toccata Op. 7 (1829-32).
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The players gamely tackled the drama of the outer movements, heightening dynamic contrasts in the ebullient first and bringing an undeniable swagger to the final Allegro con spirito. The inner movements benefited from a gentle touch and well-balanced textures.
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Australian Haydn Ensemble in Review

October 20, 2023 New York Concert Review

The AHE tore into the stormy first movement with a roiling intensity that caught my attention right away – this was passionate, emotionally powerful and impactful playing. The second movement had an austere quality played with simple sincerity, and the finale was dispatched with élan, complete with a surprise quiet ending that could have been written by Haydn. It was an impressive start to the evening.
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Bach’s Solo Organ Spectacular by Paul Jacobs

October 20, 2023 Wall Street Journal

Written for his eldest son, the composer’s ‘Six Trio Sonatas for Organ’ introduced a new musical form that required unprecedented levels of technique in a single musician.
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Set to an original sweeping score by Lowell Liebermann, and immersed within the striking stage design by world-renowned artist of premiere ballets and operas John Macfarlane, this must-see Chicago premiere is one of the most innovative works of dance today.
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Dance Review: FRANKENSTEIN (The Joffrey Ballet)

October 19, 2023 Stage and Cinema

Lowell Liebermann‘s scintillating score, played live by the Lyric Opera Orchestra tightly conducted by Scott Speck, and the impressive scenic and costume design by John Mcfarlane made for a most balanced show.
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18th Century Uncovered

October 16, 2023 Concertonet

Not false, though, was the Australian Haydn Ensemble joy and expertise. This is their first American presence. Let it not be the end. Haydn’s 100‑plus symphonies deserve more from this chamber‑sized radiant assemblage.
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Over the years there have been countless interpretations of “Frankenstein,” Mary Shelley’s extraordinary 1818 Gothic novel… But the Joffrey Ballet’s production of the story that opened Thursday evening on the stage of the Lyric Opera House — the work of the masterful British choreographer Liam Scarlett, set to a richly dramatic original score by Lowell Liebermann — might very well be its most stunning interpretation yet.
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The rich, atmospheric, almost cinematic score, with its evocative use of piano, celeste and vibraphone, was provided by American composer Lowell Liebermann
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Scarlett’s treatment of Lowell Liebermann’s lush original score has Assucena and Cuevas traversing the entire stage with apparent reckless abandon
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The Sounds of Central Asia

October 9, 2023 Concertonet

Yet it was the following Chamber Concerto for violin, piano and abbreviated orchestra which was absolutely mesmerizing…the awards had to go to the composer on piano. Mr. Liebermann has never appeared in Carnegie Hall as soloist which is a shame. Though his sensitivity, his balance, his tasteful yet rarely aggressive lines had the beauty of a Gothic edifice.
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An Epic and Empathetic Take on 'Frankenstein'

October 4, 2023 Newcity Stage

“Frankenstein” is set to an orchestral score commissioned from composer Lowell Liebermann…It’s such a beautiful score. The music follows the narrative beautifully.
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This expansive movement gave Jacobs the canvas on which to exploit the kaleidoscopic color palette of the mighty Bryan Concert Organ to the fullest. I heard sounds from the instrument that I never have before. This movement led without pause into the final “Toccata,” which brought the concerto to a rousing conclusion and the audience immediately to its feet.
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Mr. Hobson’s performances were assured and persuasive, as one has come to expect, from his many decades of performing and his wide-ranging discography.
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Featuring pianist and composer Michael Stephen Brown
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THE POWER OF JUXTAPOSITION

September 28, 2023 Infodad

What Ponthus does in pairing these pieces is enormously impressive, and his handling of the two large-scale works is thoughtful and technically first-rate… As knowing and intricate as Ponthus’ performances are, the CD as a whole is ultimately more satisfying intellectually than emotionally. It is, however, quite an experience.
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Chen’s perfectly calibrated touch and transitions created an immersive and seamless musical universe... With “Infinite Staircase,” Chen and Metropolis Ensemble have effectively commissioned a new catalog of solo piano repertoire that will echo long after the applause.
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The Ligeti concert, marking the composer’s centennial, was first and foremost an astounding performance by pianist Han Chen.
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His energy and stamina within each Étude and through the whole concert were extraordinary… Chen’s playing obliterated all secondary considerations and experiences though, and probably ruined the listener for any other experience of this music.
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It’s rare enough to catch a world premiere. It’s unheard of to catch 18 in one night.
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Let’s Talk Music podcast with Phil Gainsley: Episode 97 Paul Jacobs

September 14, 2023 Let’s Talk Music podcast

An extraordinarily expressive performer and an intensely intelligent musician, Grammy Award-winning organist Paul Jacobs is helping the “King of Instruments” retake its rightful place in classical music. Charming to speak with and passionate about the instrument, this hour with Paul is sheer delight.
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For Ligeti’s centennial, the pianist Han Chen has commissioned a companion piece for each of the composer’s eighteen études, eruptive works thinly disguised as keyboard exercises. Here, Chen plays the new pieces, paired with the originals, for the first time.
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Liam Scarlett’s Frankenstein Sees Chicago Premiere

September 7, 2023 The Ballet Herald

The production’s heartbeat pulses to an original and sweeping score composed by Lowell Liebermann. This evocative music provides the emotional undercurrent that drives the story forward, ensuring that every moment on stage resonates with the audience.
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