Home | About us | Education | Performances | Credits and Reviews | Contact

Credits and Reviews

Discography
Film credits
TV credits
    Recent Reviews
Recent Reviews

Perth Concert Hall, Scotland - Reich "Drumming"
Colin Currie & friends
April 2008

"wholly different - and staggering - musical experience. Colin Currie put together an elite team and led them in a stunning, dramatic version of Drumming - a massive artistic coup for Scotland's youngest and brightest concert hall"

The Herald
Royal Festival Hall, London - Reich "Music for 18 Musicians"
London Sinfonietta directed by Micaela Haslam
April 2008

"perfectly coordinated and tinglingly vivid"

The Guardian

"It's a mystery how this fiendishly difficult hour-long work is done, who cues whom and why no one loses track of the subtly changing repetitions.  The miraculous Sinfonietta players dazzled."

ThisisLondon.co.uk

"blasting performance by the London Sinfonietta and Synergy Vocals"

Intermezzo
Rose Hall, Lincoln Center, New York
Berio "Sequenza 111" - Micaela Haslam
February 2008

"The program opened authoritatively with Sequenza 3, brilliantly performed by Synergy Vocals' leader Micaela Haslam. This piece can only come first and be performed with utter conviction (as it was here) in any setting where all the other Sequenzas are to be heard at one go."

Sequenza 21

"thoroughly engaging...her playful performance had as much to do with her vivid facial expressions and lively gestures as with the sounds she produced"

New York Times
Avery Fisher Hall, New York - Berio "Sinfonia"
Lorin Maazel/New York Philharmonic     
February 2008

"Synergy Vocals..the highly skilled 8-member ensemble..an electrifying, sumptuously colorful and commanding account...the performance was mesmerizing"

New York Times

"(Sinfonia)..with the Synergy singers (the rightful heirs of the Swingle Singers) is still perfectly gorgeous. The performance was stunning."

Classical Music Network

"the music itself was engaging and the performance by London-based Synergy Vocals was remarkable"  

Feast of Music
National Concert Hall, Dublin - Weill "Seven Deadly Sins"
Robert Ziegler, RTÉCO with Ute Lemper
October 2007

"The family ...a male quartet, here drawn from the excellent Synergy Vocals"

Irish Times
Salle Philharmonique, Liège - Berio "Sinfonia", Pascal Rophé/Orchestre Philharmonque de Liège
March 2007

"...une interprétation vigoureuse, dynamique mais sensuelle de cette musique de collages géniaux et de raffinements sonores. Rompu à cet exercice de style particulier les voix des Synergy Vocals sont magnifiques"

ResMusica.com
Barbican, London - Reich "Daniel Variations", Brad Lubman/Steve Reich & Musicians
October 2006

"Synergy Vocals....crystalline openness"

The Times

Barbican, London - Reich "The Desert Music", Xian Zhang/LSO
October 2006

 "We heard the latest revision for the reduced forces that Reich prefers, with just 10 amplified singers replacing the choir.  And given the vibrancy of Synergy Vocals, and the skills of these front-rank LSO players, it was hard to deny that the results weren't stronger and closer to this music's heart than the original version"

The Independent

"The members of Synergy Vocals sang with enviable purity of intonation and cleanness of attack"

Classical Source

Llandaff Cathedral, Cardiff - Reich "Tehillim", Luke Dollman/BBC National Orchestra of Wales
August 2006

"the music's implicit joy wonderfully realised"
The Guardian


Royal Albert Hall, London: Late Night Prom - Colin Currie, Richard Benjafield and friends
August 2006
“Critics’ Choice”
Time Out
“Steve Reich acolytes crowded in to the arena for four of his most totemic works, virtuosically played by a deft ensemble.”
The Times
“an excellent ensemble”

Financial Times

“Drumming … a marvellous rendition. Their commitment and enthusiasm was a source of pleasure in itself. Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ was given a mellow, beguiling performance, each instrumental and vocal line being most clearly heard and extremely well-balanced. No-one was credited as being responsible for the overall direction, but it was taut, finely judged and impeccably executed. No praise can be too high for these singers and players, and the composer would undoubtedly be satisfied that his music can now be entrusted to performers who are not under his direct supervision.“

Classical Source

"Micaela Haslam, Amy Haworth and Heather Cairncross placed a vocal veneer atop the marimbas and organ which seemed inhuman in its synergy with the instruments - at one with Reich's sound world. Such blanket unity of sound is seldom achieved without the wizardry of the studio"
The Filter Review
Barbican, London - Zorn "Evocation of a Neophyte"
Brad Lubman/London Sinfonietta
June 2006

“the pitch-perfect Synergy Vocals”

Classical Source

Stazione Leopolda, Florence - Berio "Laborintus 11"
Danilo Grassi/Tempo Reale Ensemble
with Sandro Lombardi (speaker)
May 2006


"an excellent performance"

il Giornale della Musica
Disney Hall, LA - Andriessen "De Staat"
Reinbert de Leeuw/LA Philharmonic
March 2006


"De Staat featured a luminous, tonally pure-as-fresh-fallen-snow quartet of female voices taken from the collective Synergy Vocals. Fifteen years ago, De Leeuw made a recording for Nonesuch with his own superb Schoenberg Ensemble....(this performance) was even hotter and harder-driven."

LA Times

Disney Hall, LA - Reich "Tehillim"
Stefan Asbury/LA Philharmonic
March 2006

"consistently joyous"

LA Times
National Concert Hall, Dublin - Reich "Music for 18"
Sian Edwards/Ensemble Modern
February 2006
“Rarely has a NCH audience been so totally transfixed”

Classical Notes

  “First-rate performance (of Music for 18) offered by Synergy Vocals and Ensemble Modern ..... irresistibly ear-tickling and entrancing”

The Irish Times

QEH, London - Lang/Greenaway "Writing on Water" and Andriessen "De Staat": Jurjen Hempel/London Sinfonietta
October 2005

 

 "Lang's eclectic music was expertly realised.  The high point of the concert was an electrifying performance of De Staat"

Classical Source


 "Everything was put in the shade by Louis Andriessen's De Staat...breathtakingly energetic and fiercely controlled performance"

The Telegraph
  

 "De Staat...blistering performance.  A total triumph"

Independent

Barbican, London - Reich "Tehillim" and UK Premiere of "You Are (Variations)": Stefan Asbury/Ensemble Modern
January 2005

 "Synergy Vocals and Ensemble Modern combined power and subtlety with a marvellous clarity... these two groups have pretty much cracked this new piece. They also gave an incisive yet beautifully blended account of Tehillim ... they knew exactly how far to mould and nudge the dynamics beyond what it says in the score without ever falling into over-expressiveness."

The Independent

"marvellously assured performances"

The Guardian


"The Barbican was abuzz with anticipation, and there wasn't a seat to be had in the hall. The vocal parts were beautifully sung by the group Synergy Vocals."

The Telegraph


 "the outstanding Synergy Vocals....brought (Tehillim) to brilliant life"

The Times


"knocks spots off recorded versions"
(Live performance of Tehillim)

Financial Times

Royal Festival Hall, London - Berio "Sinfonia": Jukka-Pekka Saraste/BBCSO
April 2004

"Sinfonia came up brilliantly in this performance.....the striking verbal games were brought to life with cool professionalism by Synergy Vocals, as subtle in the hums of the opening as they were quirky in the Beckett text later on"

The Times

"the most rewarding concert in the Berio celebration"

Financial Times