“…a score designed to inspire delight and awe - awe at the superhuman exertions of the pianist, delight at the clarity and exuberance of the music.” Joshua Kosman – The San Francisco Chronicle, 17 November 2006 I have not so far managed to play any recording (there are several) of his First Quartet White Man Sleeps, without repeating at least its entrancing fourth movement.” Michael Oliver – Gramophone, May 2002 “The difficulty of reviewing quartets by Kevin Volans is that it’s hard to drag yourself away from the music and start writing about it.
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”…When I suggested last week that Morton Feldman’s beautifully unassertive music might point to the music of the future, 1 did not expect confirmation within a matter of days.” Paul Driver – The Sunday Times, London, 17 February 2002 He has the courage to abandon familiar sound worlds and the skill entirely to convince…” Annette Morreau – Independent, London, 2 April 2001 “Volans is a composer of staggering gifts. ”…behind this eye resides what we now have to think of as one of the most remarkable musical minds of our time.” Christopher Ballantine – International Record Review May 2000 ( Cicada for 2 pianos) There’s a rhythmic exuberance and total lack of predictability…The perspectives always change in these works you constantly want to discover what happens next.” Andrew Clements – The Guardian, London, 17 July 1999 ”What sustains it all is freshness and verve. ”When it comes to composers, only a few today could be called true originals, and Kevin Volans is one of them.” John Allison – The Times, London, 20 July 1999 (50th Birthday Concert, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London) “By refusing to repeat himself or anyone else, Volans remains one of the planet’s most distinctive and unpredictable voices.” Kyle Gann – Village Voice New York, February 1998 “…Volans can create a sound that is arrestingly beautiful and sustain interest in the way it is developed for the whole of the piece … a rare combination of directness and sophistication.” Martyn Harry – Gramophone January 1998 ( Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments CD) ”… to create a silence that means something is one of the highest skills in music, and Kevin Volans is one of its virtuosos.” The Independent, May 1995 ”Kevin Volans, a composer of compelling originality, never allows his listener’s attention to wander … his sophisticated score simply leaps to life and holds its audience willingly rapt from start to finish…” Alexander Waugh – Evening Standard, July 1993 ”I have played no record more often, or with greater joy, the whole year.” Max Loppert – Financial Times Records of the year December 1990 ”…in The Songlines Volans’s music transports us, in an almost cathartic way, to the intimate, internal world of our own imagination…” Bunita Marcus – Elle magazine New York, 1989 (String Quartet no. For me, Kevin is one of the more inventive composers since Stravinsky.” Bruce Chatwin - New York Review of Books and The Times, 1989
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It was free and alive… I believe this to be devotional music of the highest order. ”I lay back and could not believe my ears… It was music I had never heard before or could have imagined. ”The four dances were ravishingly and radiantly simple, dynamic of rhythm, assuaging of utterance.” Paul Driver – Financial Times 1986 ( White Man Sleeps Versions 1 and 2) “What Volans achieves here is a supreme simplicity that is also eclectic, dignified and profound…” Christine Lucia – The Daily News Durban 1984 (Journal/Walking Song) ”The result is a music of fresh vigorous invention…endlessly inventive in the effects they obtain from the same limited ensemble and communicating enormous energy.” Andrew Clements – The Financial Times 1982 ( White Man Sleeps, harpsichord version/Mbira/Matepe) A selection of quotes from reviews of the work of Kevin Volans over the last 30 years