REVIEWS 2013-2014
Gluck Il Parnaso Confuso/Bertoni Orfeo
St John's Smith Square 16 September 2014
"We were treated throughout the evening to some wonderful playing by the CHROMA ensemble, who made a sweet and resonant sound, led by Marcus Barcham-Stevens as first violin."
Charlotte Valori Bachtrack
Puccini La Rondine
Iford Festival June 2014
"Oliver Gooch conducts the excellent CHROMA ensemble"
Rupert Christiansen Daily Telegraph
Gloria - A Pigtale
HK Gruber, Mahogany Opera Group touring 2014
"Geoffrey Paterson conducted the excellent musicians of CHROMA in Gruber’s many-faceted pastiche of a score."
Richard Fairman Financial Times
"It's mostly scored in the form of clamorous, dense ensemble, which the excellent cast, CHROMA chamber ensemble and conductor Geoffrey Paterson steer just the right side of chaos."
Alfred Hickling The Guardian
"The music trades in pastiche rather than parody, for much of the time to great effect and always superbly played by CHROMA"
Ron Simpson What's On Stage (Hull performance)
"The whole performance is lifted by the accompaniment of the CHROMA ensemble" Wilf Arasaratnam What's On Stage (Norwich performance)
"The musical ensemble CHROMA, directed by Geoffrey Patterson, played excellently, injecting life and rhythmic vitality, along with a masterful sense of ensemble into Gruber’s quirky pseudo-jazz, pseudo-rock burlesque."
Andrew H King BachTrack
"the CHROMA ensemble under conductor Geoffrey Paterson were consistently alive to Gruber’s biting precision."
Steph Power Wales Arts Review
Through His Teeth
Luke Bedford, premiere ROH Linbury 3 April 2014
"Can this be the best British opera in years? Luke Bedford's Through His Teeth at the Royal Opera House's Linbury Theatre is exceptional. Drop everything and go. Bedford has found astonishing maturity and depth. Through His Teeth fires on all cylinders. A, (Anna Devin) a dowdy 30 something looks at fancy cars in a showroom. R (Owen Gilhooly) spots her and chats her up. "I'm not really a car salesman", he says. The tiny orchestra, CHROMA, conducted by Sian Edwards, screams alarm. The small trumpet in C wails like a warning klaxon. The harp's shortest strings are plucked to suggest tight, tense hollowness. An accordion gasps as if its lungs are too constricted to breathe...The clarinet in B flat sings a poisoned melody, like a snake charmer's instrument. The cello is played so its strings reverberate their whole length, like a snake, flexing its muscles sensuously, like a snake falling, willingly, into hypnosis. The percussionist beats brushes, quietly replicating a failing heartbeat. Bedford creates sounds that are so intriguing that the listener is drawn into an invisible trap, almost against one's will. With abstract music, Bedford recreates extreme psychological complexity."
Anne Ozorio Opera Today
"The performance is first-rate. The instrumental ensemble CHROMA plays with force and precision under Sian Edwards"
Rupert Christiansen Daily Telegraph
"Bedford's score is surely his most accomplished so far, often turning down the aural volume as the drama grows noisier – to bracing effect. Simple tonal devices and horizontal instrumental lines shatter into spiky microtones. Piano, accordion and harp give a fullness to the chamber ensemble sound. The conductor Sian Edwards and CHROMA contributed to a stylish, provocative, up-to-the-minute show."
Fiona Maddocks The Observer
The Commission - Elspeth Brooke/Café Kafka - Francisco Coll
premiere Aldeburgh 14 March 2014, touring Royal Opera House Linbury and Opera North Howard Assembly Rooms
"this new initiative from Aldeburgh Music, Opera North and the Royal Opera House to give two works a thorough airing with the crack ensemble CHROMA is welcome indeed."
Helen Wallace BBC Music Magazine
"the ever-admirable CHROMA ensemble"
Stephen Pritchard The Observer
"The musicians were members of CHROMA, a London-based flexible chamber ensemble, and their playing was a great strength of the evening under the baton of Richard Baker."
Keith Clark Musical America
"Richard Baker and the players of CHROMA were excellent throughout, their incisiveness in the latter opera suggestive almost of lengthy acquaintance with a repertory work rather than a second performance."
Boulezian
Mozart La Finta Semplice
St John's Smith Square 17 September 2013
"superb, stylish playing from the eighteen musicians of CHROMA"
Claire Seymour Opera Today
"CHROMA ensemble offered finely honed, sensitive playing: stylish without affectation"
Mark Berry, Seen and Heard
Firework-Maker's Daughter
David Bruce, premiere Hull Truck 23 March 2013, ROH Linbury, UK Tour
"Bruce's vivid music, skilfully played by CHROMA and conducted by Geoffrey Paterson, mixes the colours of snake-charmer piccolo, gamelan and folk-inspired accordion to delicate effect."
Fiona Maddocks The Observer
"The ensemble features accordion and double percussion and the nine members of CHROMA play superbly, bringing out the wit and sense of fun as well as the drama of the music."
Ron Simpson, What's On Stage
"Bruce deserves credit for never musically talking down to his audience. His eclectic, glittering score serves the narrative perfectly, reflecting Pullman’s nonspecific Indo-Oriental locations. It’s very well played, each twist and turn skilfully negotiated by the ensemble CHROMA"
Graham Rickson, ArtsDesk
Wind in the Willows
ROH Linbury Dec 2012 - Jan 2013
"Out of sight, the CHROMA chamber ensemble play the Martin Ward/George Butterworth score with a brio to match the antics onstage."
Neil Norman, The Stage
"the group alchemy of perfect collaborators, this delightful show has the stardust of unplanned magic over it. In this case you may actually have to kill to get a ticket, as the run of 30 performances is close to sold out."
The Arts Desk