Thomas Crawford

American Classical Orchestra and Chorus: Cherubini, Beethoven and Mozart

November 24, 2017

The two soprano soloists were marvelous. Hélène Brunet combines supple lyricism with technical elegance. Clara Rottsolk’s voice is at once silvery and earthy, delicate and powerful. In their individual arias, both women committed to highly ornamented interpretations; both were able to make ornament feel like a spontaneous, unplanned and experimental development of ideas. In his conducting, Crawford gives his best singers – such as Brunet and Rottsolk – considerable room to make the music their own without ever losing coherence or the appropriate tempo. When singing together, as in “Domine Deus, Rex caelestis,” these sopranos’ voices were beautifully matched. [more]

American Classical Orchestra: Johann Sebastian Bach

December 15, 2016

The consistency – the from-the-very-beginning wholeness – of Bach's genius was clear in this chronological arrangement. The kinds of writing techniques and subjects – the sequences and suspensions, chromaticisms and counterpoint intricacies – that Bach transformed from craft common to hundreds of composers to art unique to only a few became, over the years, Bach's vehicles for examinations of all aspects of being human. In this single program, Crawford's choice of music from almost all major liturgical seasons enabled his singers to present grief and joy, despair and hope, prayer and praise. And this they did marvelously. [more]

American Classical Orchestra: “L’Isola Disabitata”

March 3, 2016

The most psychologically complex role is Silvia's. Over the course of the opera, she moves from childlike naïveté to loving generosity of heart. Energetic and intelligent, she unlearns her sister's morbid lessons about men's wickedness so completely that as a newly emerged adult, she falls in love without reservation or fear. Sherezade Panthaki's Silvia was marvelous: the full evolution of her character was reflected in singing that moved from light sweetness to exuberant, vigorous sensuality. In her artistry, Panthaki made her Silvia a young woman with neither inhibition nor fear; Panthaki took every possible risk with Haydn's music and made it all feel like happiness in the process of being discovered. [more]

American Classical Orchestra and Chorus: Johann Sebastian Bach’s Saint John Passion

November 10, 2015

Tenor Rufus Muller with American Classical Orchestra and Chorus (Photo credit: Arlette Landestoy) [more]

American Classical Orchestra and Chorus: Georg Philipp Telemann’s “Day of Judgment”

October 20, 2015

The American Classical Orchestra and Chorus' recent performance of Georg Philipp Telemann's "Der Tag des Gerichts" (Day of Judgment) realized the very best of their original mission of “preserving and performing the repertoire of 17th to 19th century composers, playing the works on original or reproduced period instruments.” Presented in the generously resonant space of the Church of Saint Ignatius of Antioch on West 87th Street, Telemann's brilliant piece was at once accessible and intellectually elegant. [more]

American Classical Orchestra: Caldara, Handel, Torelli, and Allegri

May 8, 2015

The program consisted of three fairly short works, an intermission, and then the complete, relatively unknown Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo by Venetian Baroque master Antonio Caldara (1670-1736). The Church of St. Mary the Virgin provided an especially marvelous venue for this concert: the organic warmth of the American Classical Orchestra's period instruments and the singers' felicitous precision were exceptionally clear and clean in the high, mysteriously golden American Gothic space of The Church of St. Mary the Virgin in the Times Square area. The concert suffered only one difficulty: it was too long. Some people left starting around the middle of the second half; fortunately, their furtive, tip-toed departure did not disrupt the concentration of the musicians or compromise the performance. [more]

American Classical Orchestra and Chorus: Mass in B Minor

November 22, 2014

One of the strengths of this performance was in fact the clarity with which the many elements of Bach's music could be heard: without any compromise to tempo and without favoring any theme, instrument or voice over any other, Bach's music was unpacked. Because of the period instruments – and the skill of the musicians – even the most densely monumental passages, including the final movements, were powerful not because they were monolithic but because they were revelatory. Subtleties were not lost but illuminated. [more]