Review from The Soundmind, April 20, 2009
"(Rax Dawn) is a major piece of music, filled with awe, energy, and power, easily matching the scenery of southern Austria...Molly Morkoski played with enough vigor to fill two grand pianos; the piece was written specifically for her. This is expansive music, 'cinemascopic' music, mountainous music, and towards the end, a surprising, and tenderly beautiful, lullaby-type melody breaks in -– almost as a relief to what had been already played. The conclusion suggested to me the first hints of a fragrant morning rain just beginning to fall from beneath the mountain clouds."
'Enemy Slayer' musically stunning, Deseret News. May 2, 2009
"Musically, 'Enemy Slayer' is stunning. It moves from breathtakingly beautiful and lush passages to sections that are stringently dissonant, and finally ends peacefully and simply. Yet everything is cohesive and quite seamless. It is a hypnotic work that makes quite an impression on the listener."
'Enemy Slayer' draws big crowds, Salt Lake Tribune, May 3, 2009
A "Best Classical Release" of Q1 2009, Allmusic.com
"Grey knows the value of a good recording, and percussive effects pack a punch; the recording is big, spacious, and captures all of the details of the orchestration and chorus in spite of the size of the forces involved."
"From the standpoint of Western music, however, Enemy Slayer is a revelatory and utterly different musical experience in the realm of oratorio — an admirable achievement indeed."
Colorado Music Festival's 'Enemy Slayer' powerful, Daily Camera, July 2008
"Grey and Navajo librettist Laura Tohe have created a glorious tapestry of sounds and sensations that celebrate both the culture of the Diné people and a more general faith in humanity. Grey's entirely acoustic music does not indulge in overt 'modernism,' and he always seems to have the ears of the audience in mind."
'Enemy Slayer' explores angst of the returning warrior, Rocky Mountain News, July 2008
"Using a poetic, English-and-Navajo text by Laura Tohe, and augmented by projected images of the Southwest by photographer Deborah O'Grady, Enemy Slayer guides us into a native American society that treats its returning warriors with far greater respect and compassion than most communities in this country."
"Grey is a promising talent and this work does carry a potent message embracing world peace - and inner peace."
Denver Post, July 2008:
"On the surface, the oratorio — beautifully performed Friday night by the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony Chorus and baritone Daniel Belcher — is an absorbing statement on our time of war and its ravaging effect on the human psyche. At its core, however, composer Mark Grey and Navajo librettist Laura Tohe relay a communal journey of salvation and spiritual restoration.
Before a full house at Boulder's Chautauqua Auditorium, conductor Michael Christie masterfully navigated the work's progression through the four cardinal directions — East (birth), South (youth), West (adulthood) and North (death).
Belcher shone in his role and delivery of the protagonist, "Seeker," representing a universal soldier who achieves inner peace by silencing the demons within. Vocally powerful and intuitive, Belcher's persuasive dramatization of the score further enhanced its ultimately triumphant message of healing and hope.
The fine festival orchestra fully realized the work's robust — often explosive — instrumentation, even as the chorus carefully shaped its muted phrasings with precise diction and a fitting sensibility."
Navajo oratorio a triumph in Phoenix - Opera Today, February 2008
“A triumph... an achievement that has all the markings of a Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk — a composite work of art that might well prove a major monument of early 21st-century music."
"The carefully prepared performance of Grey’s lush and loving music brought home just how original the composer is in his understanding of the design of music. He has created here a collage of colors that brings the many voices of soloist, choir and instruments together with near-magical homogeneity."
Universal truths, ancient wisdom - Navajo Times, February 2008
Enemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio reveals deep meaning of creation story -- "An experience so moving that some audience members shed tears, and no one was left untouched by its depth of meaning."
For audio clips and videos on the making of Enemy Slayer, visit the Multimedia page.
From left to right: Composer Mark Grey, visualizations designer Deborah O'Grady, whose
Southwest landscape photography was projected on a 12-by-21-foot screen during the
performance, baritone soloist Scott Hendricks, and the librettist Laura Tohe.
Photo courtesy of The Phoenix Symphony.
“Undeterred by a steady rain cascading on Boulder's Chautauqua Auditorium, the single-movement work for solo violin and orchestra received a well-executed debut in the competent collaboration of violinist Leila Josefowicz and Michael Christie directing the Colorado Music Festival Chamber Orchestra...The work consists of soaring violin passages that seem to hover above the orchestra. Indeed, the exciting, interactive orchestration sometimes rhythmically embraces, sometimes harmonically repels the violin themes. As in a swell of emotion, the work crescendos until it reaches an absorbing resolution, a sense of unity between violin and orchestra.” ~Sabine Kortals, Special to The Denver Post, July 10, 2006
“Headlining the program was the premiere of a one-movement violin concerto by the young pony-tailed composer Mark Grey. With the always-dazzling Leila Josefowicz as soloist, Elevation proved a complex, sometimes thorny, mostly invigorating listening experience. In its 19 minutes, the piece bubbled over with musical and rhythmic ideas, always providing plenty for the soloist to do. This is dense music that is best listened to in an abstract way - as an intriguing journey that unfolds in a fashion that is felt rather than understood. As its title suggests, Elevation spends much of its time in the solo violin's tricky upper register, which might normally pose problems for a soloist. But our soloist is no normal fiddler. Whether negotiating those stratospheric flights, or a tricky series of double-stops, or plowing through some diabolical arpeggios (not to mention a killer cadenza), Josefowicz made easy work of this virtuoso piece. Which makes sense, since the concerto was dedicated to and, no doubt, inspired by her. She plays with an intensity rivaled only by Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg - pulling the listener into the music through the sheer force of her onstage personality. This was a tough work to judge on a single hearing. Yet it's clear that Grey has some original thoughts about composition and is certainly a musical voice deserving of attention.” ~Marc Shulgold, Rocky Mountain News, July 10, 2006
“Grey's violin concerto, 'Elevation,' was premiered last month at the Colorado Music Festival, and as the title suggests, it's a pastoral sort of mountain piece -- sweet-toned, airy and bright. The orchestra provides backdrop of lightly scored chords and the violin traipses across them, its knapsack on its back. The resulting trek is a little long, and by the end, I felt as though I had seen all the relevant sights, some more than once. But the effect was invigorating, and Leila Josefowicz -- playing from memory, no less! -- was a lovely soloist.” ~Joshua Kosman, The San Francisco Chronicle, August 15, 2006
"Bay Area composer Mark Grey originally wrote the San Andreas Suite, for unaccompanied violin, on guitar - Eddie van Halen was a particular inspiration - and then adapted it for violin. The outer portions of the tightly constructed score have something of rock's punch; in between comes a meditation with a hint of Eastern music...The suite makes one helluva vehicle for (Leiila) Josefowicz's startling technical facility, burnished tone and superior musicality.” ~Tim Smith, Baltimore Sun, December 9, 2004
"The other solo work was Mark Grey’s 'San Andreas Suite,' an elegant showpiece calculated to make the instrument and a strong performer playing it appear at their best. In the outer movements, Ms. Josefowicz roamed around a large repertory of traditional virtuoso effects. The slow movement is simple melody with left-hand pizzicato accompaniment." ~Bernard Holland, The New York Times, November 12, 2005
“After the intermission, the violinist played another unaccompanied solo work, written for her: the San Andreas Suite of Mark Grey, who was present in the audience. This evocation of life in California didn't seem, at first hearing, as particularly profound (in contrast to the Salonen), but the composer is undeniably talented. The variety of sounds he creates from a single instrument is impressive, even when it is inspired by the guitar playing of Eddie Van Halen. Best of all is the second movement, a quiet, intense portrait of Clear Lake, using Asian-like musical language. Josefowicz was even more of a virtuoso here, and her ability to hold the whole thing together with such loving intensity makes this a definitive performance.” ~James Hennerty, Special to the Times Union, Albany, NY, December 5, 2004
Other Reviews:
Washington Post, March 2005
Metroactive, Santa Cruz, California
Press:
National Gallery of Art
John Hopkins University
Carnegie Hall/Zankel Hall
“Two installments of Mark Grey’s Bertoia asked the quartet to sculpt other-worldly compositions in thick air using mysterious electronic aids.” ~Martin Bernheimer, The Financial Times (London), November 19, 2003
Visual Music, Kronos Quartet - Sydney, Australia
Sydney Opera House
Kronos brings music to the eyes - Melbourne, Australia
Time Magazine
NPR
String Section - State of the Arts
Kronos Quartet Makes Visual Music at Zankel Hall - Sequenza21
"Bay Area cellist Jeanrenaud, formerly with the Kronos Quartet, has been fruitfully experimenting with cello contexts. Here, she presented two premieres: Mark Grey's 'Sands of Time' blends the live cellist and four prerecorded and processed tracks of her, building a kind of one-person Kronos effect; her own 'Hommage' found her gracefully layering varied melodic materials atop real-time- generated loops." ~Josef Woodard, Los Angeles Times, March 9, 2004
San Francisco Bay Guardian
"Cellist Joan Jeanrenaud (late of the Kronos Quartet) was a superb soloist in Mark Grey's 'Blood Red,' which mixed live and electronically processed sounds in a slow-fast one-two punch that drove to a great and deeply moving conclusion."
~Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, March 21, 2000
"...Beginning with the remarkable Blood Red, by Mark Grey, performed by the very remarkable Joan Jeanrenaud. Here cello and electronics were in close consort, building up to a level of high emotion." ~Mark Alburger, 21st-Century Music
Lyric Opera of Chicago's "Dr. Atomic," one of the most memorable and haunting operas of recent years
~R. Todd Shuman, OperaOnline.us
"As was the case in Avery Fisher Hall at the premiere, the loudspeakers throughout Segerstrom Hall became like cathedral windows opened to the New York street, with sirens and footfalls welcomed in. [Mark Grey]'s sound design vividly spreads the orchestra and chorus throughout the hall as well. [John Adams] further enhances the spatial effects with an offstage trumpet that alludes to Ives' 'The Unanswered Question.'" ~Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, October 21, 2003
"...(John) Adams and sound designer Mark Grey are creating what the composer describes as a 'tuned resonant space' that subtly 'gives a very warm, otherworldly, cathedral-like effect to the live sound.'" ~Elena Park, andante.com, September 17, 2002
"Washed in the Sound of Souls in Transit...Mr. Adams uses taped sounds of the city as a faint aural backdrop for the work: cars swooshing by, brakes squealing, fleeting laughter....Sound design for this piece was by Mark Grey." ~Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, September 21, 2002
"The sound design by Mark Grey was another glory of the experience." ~Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, September 21, 2002
On the Transmigration of Souls - Nominated for Grammy
"Whether it is the industrial ping of his chords, guitar figures against a pointillistic flute, massed pizzicato against mallet percussion, violent jolts of lower brass or shuddering evocations of water, the listener is made to see through every sonority. The sound is both full and open, and the use of amplification so subtly rendered that it is scarcely noticed as such." ~Bernard Holland, The New York Times, January 15, 2001
"...All exceptionally mellifluousand wondrously pristine in projection lends a serene, otherworldly quality to much of the work. The delicacy of the orchestral writing - an ominous bassoon flourish here, a guitar interjection there, a trombone harmony lingers in the mind; amplification and sampling are deployed discreetly." ~Allan Ulrich, San Francisco Chronicle, January 13, 2001
Q: "Who are some of the outstanding sound designers working on Broadway and live concerts?" A: "Tony Meola - I like the work that he's doing. Abe Jacob, of course, plus Roger Gans, Mark Grey, Jim Lebrecht, Bill Platt, Francois Bergeron and Jonathan Dean. These are also people who are pushing the envelope. We're starting to develop the next level of technology with steering the sound, and we'll give tools to these new designers." ~Mix Magazine, April 1997
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