Reviews
Fanfare Magazine
January 2023
IVES Piano Sonata No. 2, “Concord” BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata No. 31, op.110 — Reed Tetzloff (pn) Emi Ferguson (fl)
I am old enough to remember when a performance or recording of Charles Ives’s “Concord” Sonata was an event. While a new recording may not yet be commonplace, neither is it rare. The young American pianist Reed Tetzloff has a great deal of competition, and one pianist, Marc-André Hamelin, has even recorded it twice.
ClassicsToday
2021
Gerard Schwarz’s Schubert “Great” Rediscovered
This 1987 recording of Schubert’s Ninth Symphony with Gerard Schwarz leading the New York Chamber Symphony was rediscovered in 2017 by its original engineer Marc Aubort. He and the conductor have edited it for release, and the expression “better late than never” easily applies to the performance in hand.
Fanfare Magazine
September/October 2021
Reed Tetzloff: Schumann
This well-recorded release is the best Schumann recital from an American pianist in years. Reed Tetzloff has a strong, assured technique; he is in total sympathy with Schumann’s idiom, and he has deeply thought through his interpretations of the four works on the program...
International Piano
September 2019
Phillip Kawin, Gerard Schwarz and the Russian National Orchestra
Phillip Kawin’s performances are always deeply considered: he follows in a lineage from Cortot and was influenced by Dora Zaslavsky Koch, a student of Bauer and Backhaus. Kawin’s reading of the Beethoven C minor concerto combines a strong grasp of structure with...
Fanfare Magazine
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Phillip Kawin, Gerard Schwarz and the Russian National Orchestra
Approximately three minutes into the Allegro con brio, pianist Phillip Kawin commences his graceful and generous performance of Beethoven’s third piano concerto. With minimal melodrama and more playfulness and joy, the piece is highly colorful and emotive...
Fanfare Magazine
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Phillip Kawin, Gerard Schwarz and the Russian National Orchestra
My last review of Phillip Kawin’s work (40:3) praised Kawin’s “subtlety, maturity, individuality, and musicality.” I have much the same reaction to his playing of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto. He makes one tasteful, sensitive choice after another throughout his performance of the piece...
Fanfare Magazine
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Phillip Kawin, Gerard Schwarz and the Russian National Orchestra
Sometimes I regret that I don’t know everything. Oh, I’ve claimed that I do often enough; but usually the person I am talking to suddenly walks quickly across the street and pretends to be intensely studying the manure display in the window of the farm supplies store...
The Australian
February 2016
Lyrebird Trio: Beethoven, Westlake, Smetana
This debut recording by the Lyrebird Trio is a cause for celebration beyond its trifecta wins at the quadrennial Asia-Pacific Chamber Music Competition in 2013. Part of that award was a season at the renowned Banff Centre in Canada.
Fanfare Magazine
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Phillip Kawin: Franz Schubert
Phillip Kawin gives us all the necessary elements that make the diminutive composer with a gigantic soul come to life. Although his phrasing is supple, he generates a relentless pulse, which lies at the foundation of most of Schubert’s compositions, giving a sense of the inevitability of an end...
Fanfare Magazine
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Phillip Kawin: Franz Schubert
We’re accustomed as reviewers to mention when a set of program notes is insightful or well written. Both are true for the notes to this Schubert album from Phillip Kawin, an admired faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music, a Schubert specialist as a performer, and an in-demand lecturer...
Classical Net
2014
Marina Yakhlakova: Franz Schubert, Franz Liszt: 8 Schubert Lieder Transcriptions
Moscow-based Marina Yakhlakova (b. 1991) captured first prize at the 2011 Franz Liszt International Piano Competition. Her teachers include Natalia Zdobnova at the Gnessin School of Music and Alexander Strukov at the Moscow State Conservatory...
Fine Music Magazine
September 2014
Marina Yakhlakova: Franz Schubert, Franz Liszt: 8 Schubert Lieder Transcriptions
Where Tchaikovsky winner Trifonov left Russia for the United States, Marina instead chose the Moskow Conservatory where she studied with Alexander Strukov and recently graduated with the Red Certificate, the school’s highest honour for artistic and academic excellence...
4MBS Classic FM
May 2013
Phillip Shovk: Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition, Tchaikovsky The Seasons
Phillip Shovk is considered to be one of Australia’s foremost concert pianists, chamber musicians, accompanists, adjudicators and teachers. After studying at the Sydney Conservatorium High School with George Humphrey and graduating with the Frank Hutchens Prize...
Fine Music Magazine
March 2013
Tomoe Kawabata & Aura Go: Five Rocks in a Japanese Garden
Five Rocks in a metaphorical reference to five Japanese composers, whose activities during the last half century have passed largely unnoticed outside their own country. Which provides us with an opportunity to explore “some exciting new discoveries”...
4MBS Classic FM
February 2013
Colin Noble: Debussy - Arabesques, Estampes and Images
Queenslander Colin Noble studied piano with Isobel Grigor during his school years and then with two legendary pianists; Pamela Page and Larry Sitsky. He holds Honours and Masters Degrees in Performance and undertook his PhD at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music...
Fine Music Magazine
September 2014
Christopher Saunders (tenor), Stefan Cassomenos (piano): Dark Wind Blowing: Songs of Love and Loss
The steady, beautifully articulated singing, secure diction and intonation of Saunders reminds one of the voices of the British singers of the 1930s – voices like that of Gervase Elwes, the most distinguished singer of English art-songs; but with the addition of passionate conviction...
Fine Music Magazine
April 2011
Jocelyn Ho: Luminous Sounds - Haydn, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Debussy, Prokofiev, Rzewski
Anyone attracted to the repertoire on this CD find it richly rewarding. It contains one of Haydn’s finest Sonatas (once memorably recorded by Glenn Gould), Mendelssohn’s Variations Serieuses, a Chopin Nocturne, two brief pieces by Debussy...
Limelight
January 2011
Adam Herd: From Shadows
Adam Herd may be sporty, but he’s also a superb pianist, as his debut release proves. Adam Herd is a young prize-winning pianist from Coffs Harbour. Don’t be misled by the “country-and-western” cover shot, or the bio that stresses his interest in sport and surfing...