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'It's (Türkfest) such a genius idea you have to wonder why no one thought of it before' - TNT Magazine June 2004
'Modern Turkish music is electrifying, original and largely unknown in Britain. But that's about to change.' - Peter Reed, Sunday Telegraph 13/06/04
'It's (Istanbul) a vibrant city in an extraordinary country, and that vibrancy is going to be transported to Hackney.... So how have we in Western Europe managed to overlook such a wellspring of creativity?' - Harriet Smith, BBC Music Magazine July 2004
'What I found fascinating about the new Turkish music I have heard is that it manages to proclaim the time and place of its composition without being overtly nationalistic. It is somehow both exotic and cosmopolitan, thoroughly contemporary yet redolent of modes and inflections that have echoed round Istanbul's old markets for millennia.' - Richard Morrison, The Times 21/06/04
'Traditional, modern, European, Asian... No wonder there's no such thing as a recognisable Turkish type....Kamran Ince is half American. Teacher and composer, he sums up the younger Turk's awareness of cultural pressures from all sides: "You've your own melting pot in the brain". - Martin Hoyle, Time Out 23-30/06/04
'Turkish music education is clearly producing some of the finest young musicians in the world and it's high time the world found out about it!' - Clark Rundell
'There was no contradiction in Türkfest, the UK's first festival of contemporary Turkish music, launching itself with a celebration of folk music....With the Bosphorus Performing Arts Ensemble mixing traditional instruments and electric bass this was really a world music event - but even that label did scant justice to the melting pot seen and heard here....much of the audience was joining in, keeping up with the febrile rhythms, and by the final number the Hackney Empire was on its feet.' - John Allison, The Times 29/06/04
'Good news! Clark Rundell and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra's excellent contemporary music ensemble 10:10 survived Glastonbury, reached Turkfest in London safely, and gave us pungent music-making worth anyone's time. The repertoire was valuable, too: six Turkish pieces from the last ten years, several outstanding, most displaying a sensibility and colouring refreshingly different from the new-music factory product of Europe' - Geoff Brown, The Times 30/06/04
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'Robinson's score (for Frank Borzage's 'Seventh Heaven') was a superbly crafted montage of leitmotifs: for the lovely heroine, string chords in the style of the 'Moonlight' interlude from Peter Grimes: for the power of fate, ominous bluesy music; and for war, cello chords and spiteful noises from the nether regions of the tenor sax. Robinson has the art of doing these things with perfect continuity.' - Nicholas Williams, The Independent 18/01/1994
'For Jean Cocteau's 'Le Sang D'un Poete' (1930), Walter Fabeck (now on grand piano) was joined by the rest of the Harmonie Band: cello, saxes, clarinet, synthesisers and accordion, with a lovely countertenor voice (Tim Massa). Paul Robinson's vivid music used recurring melodic themes as a navigational aid to Cocteau's twisty play. To start: an ironic brittle triumphalism, as an artist works on a portrait of a woman. Then the painting's mouth suddenly appears on his hand, and a statue of a woman comes to life. The artist splashes through a mirror to land in the 'Hall of Theatrical Follies' and the band swerve cheerfully from demented French coffee house dance music, via a folksy snake - charming arabesque, to a grieving tango. Robinson's musical imagination also encompasses echoes of minimalism, with a rapid tenor piano riff underpinning wailing saxophones and more abstract, atonal effects, for the appearance of an angel. The film's ending, with the statues ambivalence towards immortality, was matched by a wide open suspended chord, over which a glockenspiel line slowly faded from the ear, as a dream fades upon waking.' - Stephen Poole, The Independent 27/01/1998
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Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, 10:10 Ensemble and the Muffin Men. London Ocean 5.11.03 'The spirit of Francis Vincent Zappa is alive and well and living in Liverpool, on the evidence of this specially commissioned live project featuring the meeting of the celebrated six piece Muffin Men, described on the publicity material as 'a bunch of unruly Scousers' - and the Ensemble 10:10 chamber orchestra, a collective of members of the Liverpool Philharmonic, who treated us to three hours of Zappa classics in one of London's most underrated live venues. Zappa's penchant for modern classical music has systematically featured throughout his music since the earliest days, and he has often namechecked Igor Stravinsky, Edgar Varese and Charles Ives as being important influences. All three of these composers were featured during the introductions by the ensemble's soloists, before the real fun began when all fifteen musicians took to the stage flanked by flamboyant conductor Clark Rundell, to effortlessly run through some of Zappa's most enduring, and often complex filmic scores taken from a wide body of his work.... Instrumentation was colourful and spectacular - from woodwinds through to horns, vibraphone and multiple percussions alongside the more conventional Muffin Men drums/bass/keyboards/horns axis. Surrogate Zappatista Carl Bowry excelled on guitar throughout, as did the superb arrangements of Ian Gardiner.' -Pete Lawrence 'In short these 16 musicians have taken Zappa's work and, through colourful arrangements and skilled improvisations, made it something new and vital. It's a joy to hear and a fitting tribute to a man whose legacy deserves to be kept alive.' Paul Donnelly |