“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, October 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, October 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, November 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 MoreIt'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, August 2022
Read MoreAndreas Brantelid has masterfully absorbed the subtle differences in language between these three works and delivers very eloquent renditions throughout. Everything is projected with good taste working in tandem with flawless virtuosity. - Times of Transition (album review) The Strad, September 2021
Read MoreAndreas Brantelid was absolutely fantastic (…) Because he figuratively speaking sat back, he let the music do the work - Thomas Michelsen, Politiken, May 2021
Read MoreSoloist Elina Vahala was championed in her earliest years by the orchestra’s former chief conductor Osmo Vanska, and has enjoyed a stellar career, but was making her debut with the SSO. She is an authoritative and poised player … full of expressiveness….Vahala’s playing was never showy, but her cadenzas were absolutely compelling and of a piece with the shaping of a demanding work that she and Lintu structured beautifully from start to finish. Glasgow concertgoers … would be unlikely to hear this music played better than it was by these Finns with the home team. - Keith Bruce, The Herald, 4th November 2022
Read MoreAdded to the mix was the formidable American-born Finnish violinist Elina Vähälä, whose unshakeable, coruscating presence in the Shostakovich injected fire, obstinacy, tenderness and pathos into a complex, at times harrowing, late work….Such a vital concoction of responses filled this riveting performance… a piquancy arising from delicate interchanges between the soloist and orchestra principals…But it was in the finale that Vähälä found every opportunity to showcase her combative energy and stimulating musicality. Like a mischievous child, she threw truculent pronouncements at the orchestra…. (Conductor) Lintu played both fellow protagonist and artful arbiter in this electrifying trading of insults, forging a synthesis that held things together while maintained the inexorable swagger. - Ken Walton, VoxCarnyx, 4th November 2022
Read MoreThe young guest conductor of Greek origin, Dionysis Grammenos, took charge of the Orchestre Symphonique des Québec with great mastery. His sobriety, precision and efficiency provided a beautiful shape to the orchestra. He really committed to the music! - Jacques Leclerc , lesartsze.com November 21, 2022
Read MoreFrom Debussy's ‘Prelude, L’Apres-Midi d’un Faun, the conductor (Dionysis Grammenos) stood out with a slow but precise, economical gesture, allowing the various strands of the orchestra to unfold quietly. Grammenos was impeccable here, as he was later, in the orchestral main course, Stravinsky's 1919 Firebird Suite. Again in this latter work, Grammenos brings out absolutely incredible colours, from the first bars of the score through to the Berceuse… This boy is destined for great things in all probability. We hope to see him again soon on the same stage. - Le Soleil online, November 2022
Read More“John Axelrod is a highly imaginative and dynamic musician, whose rich musicological background and historical insights combine with intellectual drive and charismatic enthusiasm for people and for life, to get probing, rigorous and richly characterized interpretations.” -Remy Franck, Pizzicato
Read MoreNot only does Axelrod has a phenomenal stick technique, he also has something you probably can’t learn in school: the power of creative suggestion which fires up even the last stand of the orchestra…Wolfgang Sandner, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
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