“A top-form RSNO under Ellie Slorach's crisp, precise direction"
David Kettle, The Scotsman, 2025
Read More“Slorach held her forces together perfectly, balancing the orchestra and chorus to let the soloists through the dense mix“
David Smythe, Bachtrack, 2025
Read More“Ellie Slorach conducts with a huge smile and bags of energy"
Simon Thompson, Seen and Heard International, 2025
Read More“Ellie Slorach conducts energetically keeping this whole musical force together. Amazing!"
Kate Calder, Edinburgh Music Review, 2025
Read More“Evgeny Kissin was joined by Maxim Rysanov, who spun long melodic lines that just kept on going.“
Erica Jeal, The Guardian, 2025
Read More“I do not want to listen recordings of this repertoire for a while, lest I forget the atmosphere Rysanov created.“
N Lilla, Kadencia, 2025
Read More“Rysanov created an impressive variety of sound from the orchestra; sometimes virtuosic and playful, sometimes gravely solemn”
Maria Fanni Juhos, papageno, 2025
Read More“Rysanov let the music speak for itself. His sound was very natural. It may sound exaggerated, but Kissin and Rysanov were really two kindred spirits in this music.”
Hugo Jager, Trouw, 2025
Read More“The musical execution of this moving and expressive work was very fine indeed, with tight synchronicity from all players under Ellie Slorach’s artful conducting.”
Miranda Heggie, The Arts Desk, 2023
Read More“The impressive thing here was Ellie Slorach’s command of the orchestra’s playing. In the slow, atmospheric opening of the piece string pizzicati were absolutely unanimous, the tunes swayed in folksy style, the metrical changes were deftly handled, and there was neatness and clarity throughout.”
Robert Beale, The Arts Desk, 2019
Read More“Conducting the ensemble, Ellie Slorach oversaw a very fine performance from her players, switching between the smorgasbord of styles with artful panache, lighting changes delineating the scenes.”
David Smyth, Bachtrack, 2023
Read More“It was the songlike melody in the andante, swapped so dreamily between cello and violin, that will linger longest in the memory.”
★★★★★
Stephen Pritchard, The Observer, November 2023; Concert Review of The Sitkovetsky Trio at Bath Mozartfest
Read More“Maxim Rysanov brings a terrifically full-bodied performance to the concerto’s powerful outer movements, while adventuring deep into the timbral possibilities of the instrument in the work’s more mysterious inner movements.”
Kate Wakeling, BBC Music Magazine, 2023
Read More“Animated and enthusiastic, Sitkovetsky danced around the stage throughout the performance of Vivaldi’s concerti, digging into his solo lines and playing along with the orchestra when the solo line was tacet. His impressive ability to play the quickest passages cleanly and smoothly was second only to his delicate and thoughtful treatment of the slower passages.”
The Capital Times (Matt Ambrosio), January 2023 (Concert Review of ‘The Four Seasons’ with Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra)
Read More“During the cadenza of the “Otoño” (“Autumn”) movement, the soloist made ample use of the violin’s full range and, for an extended moment, rendered sweet the very highest register of the instrument. Then in the “Invierno” (“Winter”) movement, Sitkovetsky charged the nearly romantic melody with penetrating energy that cut through the concert hall. Displaying a unique mastery of extended techniques and a keen sense of rhythm, Sitkovetsky’s performance was extraordinary.”
The Capital Times (Matt Ambrosio), January 2023 (Concert Review of ‘The Four Seasons’ with Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra)
Read More“For poetry, colouristic imagination and, not least, an infectious sense of shared enjoyment, these performances can hold their own against any rivals.”
Richard Wigmore, Gramophone, November 2023 (Album Review of Beethoven: Piano Trios Vol. 2)
Read More“Holly Mathieson got the first movement [of Berlioz] absolutely right in terms of finding a balance between structure and spontaneity – the opening music dreamlike, fragmented, episodic, creative, seemingly conjured out of the ether, the conductor fluid in her movements, tending to use both arms as well as the baton to describe whole roulades of sound with her gestures, but getting the required “attack” as the strings raced through the cross-rhythms to the first “peak” of excitement, and pointedly bringing out the wind augmentations to the strings’ excitable reiteration of the opening."
Peter Mechen, Middle-C Classical Music Reviews, May 2021 (for NZSO: Takemitsu, Ker and Berlioz)
Read More“From the outset, Mathieson conducted with total, crystalline clarity and control. The first movement’s great harmonic arc was beautifully sketched… The tone and feel of the symphony’s very first notes could still be heard in the last ones, a rare achievement even among the best conductors.”
Max Rashbrooke, Stuff, May 2021 (for NZSO: Takemitsu, Ker and Berlioz)
Read More“It's a brave cellist who lays their technique bare by recording Piatti's 12 Caprices, cornerstones of advanced cello training. All unaccompanied, there is nowhere to hide, and no let-up in extreme technical difficulty. Brantelid more than meets the challenge, not only producing flawless examples of high-tessitura octaves, rapid arpeggiated cross-string semiquavers and formidable double-stops, but showing them off as charming and attractive music”
Janet Banks, The Strad, 2022