PRESS
QUOTES
to see a list of recent
reviews, please click here
"The
pianist Blair McMillen can play composers like Debussy, Liszt, and Scriabin
with flair, intelligence, and Juilliard-honed virtuosity, as his 2004
recording “Soundings” makes abundantly clear."
"(His)
elegant performance of the theme of Bach’s Goldberg Variations made you
want to hear him play the entire work."
"(Steven
Stucky’s Album Leaves) was played with crackling vigor…delicate
colorings and rhapsodic expressivity."
"....when
played by the formidable Mr. McMillen, any piece sounds terrific."
Anthony
Tommasini, chief music critic, The New York Times
Read the entire review...
(April. 2007)
"Blair
McMillen found a world of wonders within the planes of (Esa-Pekka) Salonen’s
wildly demanding writing for piano."
Marion
Rosenberg, Newsday
Read the entire review...
(Oct. 2007)
"Also
appealing was (EP Salonen’s) Yta II for solo piano, which, as played by
Blair McMillen, darted along the keys like a furtive animal, or turned and
flashed like a school of minnows, always around middle C, a home base in a
piece without a tonic. Mr. McMillen, the evening's artistic director, played
three different keyboards, including a synthesizer in Floof and a
harpsichord in Meeting…."
Anne Midgette,
The New York Times
Read the entire review...
(Oct. 2007)
".... in his
24 Variations on a Bach Chorale, Hersch contrasted lyrical stretches
with pointillistic deconstructions, steely chords delineating the harmonic
structure, and ecstatic runs up and down the keyboard, all of which McMillen
rendered vividly and grippingly."
Andrew Lindemann Malone, The Washington Post
Read the entire review...
(Oct. 2007)
"The
concert began with a solo piano work, The Wanton Brutality of a Tender
Touch (2006), inspired by a brawl at a baseball game, and given a
forceful, virtuosic reading by Blair McMillen. Mr. McMillen’s sharp-edged,
cluster-driven pianism was also a driving force in Almost-Truths and Open
Deceptions (2007), a fresh, vigorous chamber work for strings, percussion
and piano in which shifting (and sometimes pounding) rhythms and intricate
interplay create the feeling of a rock-influenced dance suite."
Allan Kozinn, The New York Times
Read the entire review...
(May 2007)
"This
young American pianist has the technique, musicianship and dynamism to play
just about anything."
Anthony
Tommasini, The New York Times (April 2007)
"McMillen
closed the concert with a powerhouse account of Fred Hersch’s 24 Variations
on a Bach Chorale."
Allan Kozinn,
The
New York Times (Nov. 2006)
"A
polite beast of a work closed the program, drawing on Blair McMillen’s
considerable skills….some heroic playing by McMillen added extra ferocity."
Bruce Hodges, MusicWeb International (Nov. 2006)
"one
of the more exciting pianists on New York’s contemporary scene."
New Yorker (2006)
"This teeming
musical world has an intensely loyal audience and its share of brilliant young
stars. One is Blair McMillen......"
"(McMillen's solo
CD) Soundings offers gripping and impressive performances of Liszt,
Debussy, Scriabin and Copland, as well as more recent works by Morton Gould
and William Bolcom."
"You could call
Mr. McMillen and (Stephen) Gosling the dynamic duo of contemporary music
pianists in New York."
Anthony
Tommasini, The New York Times
Read
the entire front-page article here...
(Oct. 2005)
"Pessimists about
the future of classical music may be looking in the wrong places. The
were empty seats at the Metropolitan Opera's estimable "Aida" on Friday night,
but on Saturday, "Powerhouse Pianists" filled the Tenri Cultural Institute to
the gills, with standees crowding the rim of this small West Village gallery
and hopeful ticket buyers stretching out onto 13th Street.
"The music was
executed alternately by two first-rate pianists, Blair McMillen and Stephen
Gosling.....performers of high quality."
Bernard
Holland, The New York Times
Read the entire review...
(Oct. 2005)
"Mr. McMillen
showed both the technique to negotiate this music and the imagination to find
its heart."
"There are sizzling sections in this (music) that are based on riffs a rock band would envy, and
that Mr. McMillen played with an irresistible energy."
Allan Kozinn,
The
New York Times
Read the entire review...
(Mar. 2004)
"Mr. McMillen’s
technique was outright formidable. Dazzling and virtuosic; he is at turns, all
highly charged density and in the next instant, spiritually translucent and
lucent, always with a sensitivity that brings illumination to the knottiest
music at his fingertips."
"(He) proved a persuasive advocate of these composers' piano music,
alternating a gentle touch, full of light and legato, and never losing sight
of the core of the music, no matter how knotty or agitated it became.
Mr. McMillen is a wonderful discovery for me, and brilliant is too light a
term to describe his myriad attributes."
John Hammel, WNTI, 91.9
F.M. (NPR)
Read the entire review...
(Mar. 2004)
"Musicians as
imaginative as Mr. McMillen tend to dislike being typecast, and perhaps the
satisfyingly idiosyncratic recital was his way of showing the breadth of his
interests."
"(played) delicately,.....(and) with riveting assertiveness,"
Allan Kozinn,
The New York Times
Read the entire review...
(May 2005)
"The soloist was
Blair McMillen, who with his performances announced himself as a prodigiously
accomplished and exciting new artist. Mr. McMillen was
riveting....... excellent."
Anthony
Tommasini, The New
York Times
Read the entire review...
(Oct. 2002)
"...a young
maverick... has a talent for bringing contemporary piano literature to life."
Stuart Isacoff, Yamaha Accent Magazine
Read the entire article...
(Fall 2004)
"Blair
McMillen delineates every musical requirement with effortless virtuosity.”
Gramophone
"Pianist Blair McMillen keenly characterized each one, finding contrast and
drama, and further, made them look easier to play than they most likely really
are. Among the hundreds of young pianists on the scene, it is easy to forget
that many of them such as McMillen coexist much more comfortably with
contemporary scores and their demands – demands that would have been more
formidable to artists even twenty years ago."
Bruce Hodges, MusicWeb International
"The
performance...is all one could wish for--delivered with vigor, élan and a
welcome dryness, in the best sense of the word."
liner
notes from the Albany CD "Charles Jones"
Tim Page (Chief Classical Music Critic, The Washington Post)
"...after hearing
Mr. McMillen play these difficult, bracing works with such command and
excitement, I think I have a keener sense of who he is as an artist than I
would have gotten from your basic Haydn-Beethoven-Chopin-Ravel debut recital."
Anthony
Tommasini, The New York Times
"...pianist Blair
McMillen gave an intensely committed account..."
"...this workout
showed him at his ferocious best"
Bruce Hodges, MusicWeb International
"The
Debussy 'Estampes' was lustrously played here by McMillen..."
Alex Ross,
The New
York Times
"...a brilliant young pianist and
contemporary music firebrand..."
Anthony
Tommasini, The New York Times
"Pianist Blair McMillen contributed greatly to the high quality of the
performance; he was a strong, supportive partner, and the artists' rapport was
close and radiated mutual respect and affection."
New York Concert Review
"...a brilliant pianist....."
Sequenza21
"Proved to be one of the
most versatile and complete pianists yet heard. Trained at Oberlin and
Juilliard, he renewed our faith in Liszt with his intense reading of
Valee d'Obermann,
then proved himself equally adept in the classical era with...a set of
Mozart Variations. Symanowski's Serenade
de Don Juan provided
a convincing showcase for McMillen's equally compelling romantic sensibility
and technique, and he sealed his success with flying fingers in Bartok's
Sonata."
"He is equal to every technical
challenge presented by this music (Bernstein and Copland especially), and a
very sensitive collaborator─the kind of pianist/collaborator we all want to have."
David
Niethamer, The Clarinet (CD review)
"Blair McMillen
played (Shostakovitch Concerto #1) with confidence and emotional fire.
There was a wonderful assurance and virtuoso clarity to the complicated
passages with extensive fingering and heavy chording. The large audience
were on their feet like a shot, and complimentary "Bravos" rang out from
all corners of the hall."
"....gave a moving
and precise performance...."
Soundstage
"an
outstanding pianist..."
"His performance
(was) appealing in its authority and fluidity. McMillen's articulations were
clean and precise, and he consistently maintained a nearly effortless musical
line."
"His
emotional involvement gave this familiar music new meaning."
"Blair McMillen is
one of the most sought-after young pianists today; it was easy to see why. He
created sounds that transported the audience to another space and time...."
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