I liked the two CDs immensely. I
played them to the Ambassador of the European Union, a very refined
Dutchman who plays the piano magnificently, who remained
enthusiastic, as was to be expected.
Salvatore Pinna – His Excellency the Italian Ambassador in the
Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire) (Previously in St. Petersburg,
Russia)
I due CD mi sono piaciuti moltissimo. Li ho fatti sentire
all’ambasciatore dell’Unione Europea, un olandese molto raffinato che
suona magnificamente il piano, che è rimasto entusiasta, come del
resto era scontato.
Salvatore Pinna – Sua Eccellenza l’Ambasciatore d’Italia nella
Repubblica Democratica del Congo (Zaire)
This week I found in a record shop in
London two cd’s with your music. Thanks for the music, and of course
thanks to Naxos for recording them…
I like the works even more after
listening to them again.
…I hope in the near future to have more of your work on cd’s,
especially your two symphonies.
Roel J. Groen – Netherlands
I have just purchased your new CDs on
Naxos and enjoyed them very much. Vol. 1 is particularly intriguing.
…..You might be interested to know
that your two CDs are readily available even in a city such as
Winnipeg in several local CD stores.
…..Once again, congratulations on your two recordings. I enjoyed
them immensely.
D.H. – Winnipeg, Canada
As I listened to some of the pieces at
your website, it became immediately clear that our listeners would
benefit wonderfully from hearing your compositions. I look forward to
reviewing & scheduling your music and introducing you to those
listeners who have yet to discover your fine work. We are flattered
to hear from the composer, herself!
Bill Baker – Radio WCNY Classic FM –
USA
We have received both of them from
Naxos and played everything from each of them since they arrived at
the station. Your music is great and we have enjoyed introducing our
listeners to your compositions.
Henri Pensis – Radio WUFT – USA
I did enjoy your pieces…..If you’d
like to do a ‘phone interview sometime to talk about your works I’d
be delighted to arrange it.
Mick Freeman – Radio WQUB – USA
Thank you! And congratulations on your
success.
Robert McBride – All Classical Radio
KBPS 89.9 – USA
I’m listening to them right now, and
enjoying them very much.
John Michel – American Composers
Forum – Composers Datebook – Radio WDAV – USA
Thank you very much for your
contribution to music. It is greatly appreciated.
Ted Weiner – 89.9 WDAV Classical
Public Radio – USA
It was a pleasure speaking to you and I
enjoy your music very much.
Stacey Rodda – Radio 4 RTHK – Hong
Kong
Other works will be scheduled for
future programs. And thanks again, for sharing the gift of your
music.
Casper Sunn – Radio WORT 89.9 FM –
USA
Congratulations on your impressive
achievements!
Renee Chaney – Radio WGMS
classical1035 – USA
Thanks so much for sending the CDs—
wonderful music and I’ll try to broadcast more of it soon!
Bernard Sherman – Radio KDSI – USA
I enjoyed it, and I will be sure to
play more in the future.
Eric Michaels – Beethoven Radio WTMI
– USA
I want to tell you that I was very
impressed with your recent Naxos recordings. In fact I think I have
played several of your works on that label.
Karl Scroggin – Radio WUIS/WIPA –
USA
We enjoyed your first Naxos recording
very much and will continue to find places to air selections in our
regular broadcast schedule…….We’ve just received volume two and
hope to find a featured spot for it on our Contemporary Currents
program in the coming months.
Steve Hahn – Radio KUAT-FM – USA
You did indeed send me the cd’s and I
think your music is very fine. Upon my return, my first priority is
to get your music on the air in the Baltimore/Washington, DC area.
Mark Malinowski – Radio WBJC – USA
You have a new fan. I’ve been listening
to Vol 1 of your music since I bought the CD 2 or 3 days ago.
I like what I hear. Especially tracks 2
and 5, which seem to me the most unusual and daring. The others I
like too, esp the use of the piano in the symphony.
I bought Vol 2 this morning, and am
liking what I’ve begun to hear.
I found Vol 1 a bit conservative at
first: unchallenging and, mostly, approachable. That’s not
necessarily a criticism, and I’ve revised this view a little already.
I guess there may be a certain traditional way of using the
orchestra, though there’s obviously a rich imagination at work and
plenty of intriguing turns to keep one busy and listening but there’s
no leaning on the orthodoxies of minimalism, thankfully, nor is there
musical blandness masking as depth.
I do like the Naxos 21st century
Classics series, and think Santa Klaus Heymann is to be commended. I
hope it’s financially successful for him, and that he continues it.
I’m sure this’ll put your name on a wider map than previously (as it
did with Tveitt, to the great pleasure of the Bis label).
I certainly find yours a fresh addition
to the collection: unafraid to show some life and struggle, even
entrails and muscle through music.
…..PS: Elegant site.
Bert Bailey – Ottawa, Canada
I’ve been enjoying both your CDs over
the weekend, digging them more as I listen. Again, a strong favourite
for the top of my 21st century classics series by Naxos. ‘Hope it
brings you a huge audience.
…..As I said in my earlier one: I
think Requiescat is a marvellous work: inward, serene and laid-back,
neither extroverted nor extravagant at all. (Remarkable, really, for
one who seems to have such a masterful grip on ex. and ex. musical
statements.) Yet it’s got an intensity and focus that gnaw at one. I
find it induces not the kind of other-worldly reverie that Rautavaara
evokes, but something more earthy and immanent. The vocal parts at
the end are exquisite, too: sparingly laid out, and beautifully sung.
I love and admire Rautavaara, and
welcome your music also for being sometimes dreamy – yet always in
that less other-worldy way: more earthy, as I said, leaving the
listener’s feet planted on the ground.
…..Messidor, which you said
illustrates your taking dissonance to a certain limit (though not in
such words), is also the piece that, while I was trying to enter your
musical universe and understand it, I’d found most intriguingly
dissonant. For my part, I’d attributed those sounds either…1) to
the ‘Russian’ sound of the horns — a special unrefined brassy timbre
I think I detect especially in older Russian orchestras, not their
contemporary ones, which are so much more uniform with all others. 2)
to the orchestra. Or, thirdly, to the composer.
Now that you confirm that it’s this
last, let me add that I considered it maybe the most distinctive
stamp or single feature of the musical personality that was taking
shape before my ears. It was rough and unrefined and earthy and
visceral …and I loved it! So refreshing, after hearing so much
effette transcendentalism, as well as the acidic torturings of…..
There was play in Messidor…..there’s
also an extroverted musicality; how refreshing!
The first two minutes of the closing ‘Fanfare’ on that disc is
positively bursting with harsh dissonances of this kind: what joy!
Joy because the following minute, so light and graceful, shows in
spades that the composer is no crude primitive. Because the music is
blessed with gracia, as they say in Spain: having a unique stamp and
distinction.
Bert Bailey – Ottawa, Canada
Greetings. I’ve only recently become acquainted with your music
through some fine Naxos recordings. You’ve found a big fan of your
work.
Sean Hickey – Brooklyn, NY, USA
I am a classical music lover and I thank you warmly for having
placed some of your musical works on the web at our disposal. For me
it has been an absolutely unusual experience; music that one listens
to without difficulty, with pure pleasure and which, however, is not
banal. To reconcile these two things is a really difficult challenge
in our times, a challenge that I think you are winning in a sure
manner. Continue like this and thank you for all you will still offer
us.
Enrico Ghidoni – Bologna, Italy
Sono un apassionato di musica
classica, e La ringrazio vivamente di aver messo a disposizione sul
web alcuni pezzi della sua musica; è stata per me una scoperta
assolutamente insolita; musica che si ascolta senza difficoltà con
puro piacere, e che tuttavia non è banale; conciliare le due cose è
una sfida davvero difficile al giorno d’oggi, che lei mi pare stia
vincendo in maniera sicura; continui così e grazie per quello che
potrà ancora offrirci.
Enrico Ghidoni – Bologna, Italy
Thank you for the wonderful music I
have just discovered on Naxos records. I have a second disc on its
way from England now with "Favole" and other works. I hope
there will soon be recordings of your 1st and 2nd symphonies. It is
still wonderful to discover new works of worth and beauty in the 21st
century. I hope you have many, many years of composing and good
health.
Malcolm Parker – Santa Barbara PD,
USA
I have just bought your fascinating cd
on naxos and am excited by your wonderfully eclectic and very
enjoyable music. I am no musician but love the joys of new discovery
and your music is just that. We need to hear more of it in England.
My thanks to you for a delightful new musical experience.
Peter Gildener – Penzance, United
Kingdom
I am writing to congratulate you on
your wonderful music. I acquired one of the two Naxos discs almost by
accident and am enormously impressed by the spirit and imagination
that inhabits every bar. The first piece on the disc, "Firelights",
is particularly striking, and all the music is a great joy at a time
when so much new writing is lifeless or, in many cases, so UNmusical!
Keep it up, and in the meantime I am off out to buy the other disc!
Steve Chevis – Cranleigh, United
Kingdom
At last! I have finally succeeded in
obtaining a copy of volume 1! And it is just as good as the other
disc. The symphony is so full of fantasy, Florestan embodies the
character to perfection (and I say that as something of a non-fan of
Schumann – more my loss I guess), and Messidor is just so much FUN!
Don’t you worry about the local avant-garde. Who’s listening to their
squeaky gates anyway? Think of Pierre Boulez, who stated that Britten
and Shostakovich were totally irrelevant to the evolution of music in
the 20th century! Who is the most-listened-to composer of the 20th
century? Shostakovich! Who listens to Benjamin Britten? Millions! Who
listens to Pierre Boulez………..? (Don’t all speak at once) I hope
that your music will get to be heard by more people. It certainly
deserves to. I love it! Roll on the Second Symphony! Have you written
any choral music?
Steve Chevis – Cranleigh, United
Kingdom
Congratulations you are great in music,
and I read your THOUGHTS too, wonderful let me kiss your hands…..
Setrak Setrakian – Beirut, Lebanon
Wow!!! You are a very great composer! I
listened all your music online and looked the scores. You are the
best composer I found in the internet!
Udo Marx – Kiel, Germany
I recently purchased a Naxos CD of your orchestral works
(Florestan, etc.) and have enjoyed your creative work immensly. I
especially appreciated reading your comments on the compositional
trends of the 20th century….
Raymond Weidner – USA
Dear Maestro, I was very happy to find you on the web. I think the
same way in many things and I think that above all one must know
music to be able to write it. Many composers from the War till our
times have made us hear many stupidities seasoned with some aesthetic
theory. Just because we are in an ecletic phase we can reckon with
these past times. I am 36 and I live in Firenze. You will also know
how many young composers recognize themselves in these words. I have
listened to your first CD for orchestra and I propose myself again to
do the same with the second.
Cesare Valentini – Firenze, Italy
Egregio Maestro, sono stato molto contento di trovarLa sul web.
La penso come lei in tante cose e penso soprattutto che bisogna
conoscere la musica per scriverla. Tanti compositori dal dopoguerra
ad oggi ci hanno fatto sentire tante stupidaggini condite con qualche
teoria estetica. Proprio perchи siamo in una fase di estremo
eclettismo possiamo fare i conti con questo passato. Io ho 36 anni e
abito a Firenze. Anche lei saprа quanti giovani compositori si
riconoscono in queste parole. Ho ascoltato il suo primo disco di
musica orchestrale, mi ripropongo di fare altrettanto col secondo.
Cesare Valentini – Firenze, Italia
“The performances of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, conducted by Fabio Mastrangelo, are astonishing. The orchestra shows great compactness in which the wind and brass sections distinguish themselves.
We can affirm that this first volume of Ms Brusa’s works is an unmissable cd for music lovers and that it further enriches the Naxos Series dedicated to the 21st Century Classics.”
Marco del Vaglio – Nuova e Nostra, Italy