press
NewYorkArts.net
January 12, 2012
"Claire Chase and the International Contemporary Ensemble...are among the best reasons to be thankful that one is alive and listening to music at the present time. Collaboration, a source of inspiration throughout Chase's career, proved key to the genesis and evolution of her second solo recording. Jacob Greenberg, a classmate at Oberlin and a member of ICE since 2002, produced the disc and lends his prodigious talents as a pianist on two tracks."
Time Out Chicago
December 2011
Schumann and Busoni on New Focus is among the ten best classical albums of 2011
Musical America
September 19, 2011
"The evening [at Miller Theatre, with music of James Dillon] closed with 'Le Femme Invisible' (1989), a chamber piece featuring ICE that allowed both woodwinds and piano (Jacob Greenberg) several dazzling, filigreed solo turns over reiterated chimes...the music sidles up to near sumptuousness, only to bash a listener's expectations with more virtuosic complexity."
Time Out Chicago
July 20, 2011
"Chicago audiences are accustomed to seeing Jacob Greenberg's dome onstage at the MCA with the International Contemporary Ensemble. Yet Greenberg's impressive keyboard prowess extends far beyond the labyrinths of a George Crumb score or the intricate weavings of Varése. For his latest album, the Northwestern grad steps into the age of piano grandmasters Robert Schumann and Ferruccio Busoni for a more tonal exploration of interiors and exteriors.
The intimacy conjured throughout Schumann's Humoreske, op. 20, is a result of a thoroughly supple approach to the keys...one is whisked into nostalgic and fleeting daydreams of the composer, on what Greenberg calls "a solitary walk through the woods.
In "Fantasia Contrappuntistica," an homage to Bach's Art of the Fugue, Greenberg brings forth Busoni's myriad contrapuntal lines in a gush. Even in this extroverted showpiece, Greenberg's phrasing and pacing is deliberate. But in a scene ever more saturated with the histrionics of Lang Lang-ian superstars, the understated approach wins out."
Alex Ross: The Rest is Noise blog
July 6, 2011
Schumann/Busoni CD listed on "Nightafternight playlist"
Chicago Classical Review
January 29, 2011
"A largely youthful capacity audience at the Art Institute's Fullerton Hall was treated to a muscular dose of envelope-pushing music in a postmodern context Friday evening by flutist Claire Chase and pianist Jacob Greenberg...The stylistically eclectic selections ranged from Salvatore Sciarrino...to a solid performance of the moving Thoreau section of Charles Ives's Concord Sonata for piano...[Greenberg displayed] great technical virtuosity...[the Boulez Sonatine] bears frequent rehearing, especially from the hands of such committed performers."
The New York Times
August 18, 2010
"Mr. Birtwistle's Bach Measures...[was] a mood-setting prelude for the complex, arrestingly visceral Slow Frieze. In this 1996 work he tries to evoke in music the effect of seeing a series of ancient friezes, bas-relief panels that seem to convey movement as you walk by. Beginning with staggered bursts of chords for a solo piano (played incisively by Jacob Greenberg), the music evolves in chunks of sound that on the surface seem to be static blocks but quiver with activity within."
MusicWeb International
August 2010
"Every so often during the season a concert comes along that sinks its hooks in your memory and refuses to let go...Jacob Greenberg handled the demanding piano part [of Slow Frieze] with typical grace and ease."
Concertonet.com
August 18, 2010
"And oh, I would like to hear [Slow Frieze] again, to continue on Mr. Birtwistle's road trip, especially with Jacob Greenberg on piano."
Sequenza 21
August 10, 2010
"Of special interest to me is the spectacularly assured reading given Vox Balaenae, one of [George Crumb's] signature pieces. The ICEers (Claire Chase, flute, Kivie Cahn-Lipman, cello, and Jacob Greenberg, piano) play this moving (and difficult) score as if they were born to it."
Alex Ross: The Rest is Noise blog
July 10, 2010
"I'd like to mention again Jacob Greenberg's fine CD Solitary, with a strikingly polystylistic Lied ohne Worte by the pianist."
The New York Times
July 9, 2010
"The members [of ICE] were ideal emissaries for Edgard Varčse...Mr. Greenberg accompanied Samantha Malk, a soprano, in a velvety rendition of "Un Grand Sommeil Noir."
American Record Guide
July 2010
"Pianist and composer Jacob Greenberg opens this interesting collection [Solitary] with ten selections from the fifth book [of Kurtág's Játékok]...he plays these pieces wonderfully. Next...is his account of Schumann's little played Gesänge der Frühe...Greenberg makes a great case for them. The Schoenberg--a fiendishly difficult work--sounds very enthusiastic, almost truculent...Greenberg's Lied ohne Worte nach Rilke is a delightful miniature, and its compositional quality is completely at home with the other works."
The New York Times
April 24, 2010
"[Claire] Chase and her collaborators showed a consistent knack for
illuminating communicative strands within knotty conceptions. She and Jacob
Greenberg, a confident and insightful pianist, made a kittenish frolic of Franco
Donatoni's prickly "Fili," and balanced the bright, hard clashes in Pierre Boulez's
Sonatine for Flute and Piano with melancholy lyricism and careful attention
to color."
Unquiet Thoughts (Alex Ross in the New Yorker)
March 2010
Solitary listed in "Playlist" column
Marc Geelhoed, Deceptively Simple
March 7, 2010
"ICE's pianist Jacob Greenberg has released an exquisite and wide-
ranging disc of Mozart, Schoenberg, Kurtág, Schumann, and his own Lied
ohne Worte Nach Rilke. Mozart's Rondo in A minor, K. 511, is especially
expressive, and follows nicely, and surprisingly, out of a selection of
Kurtág's Játékok."
Albany Times-Union
March 5, 2010
"...a rare and fascinating presentation [at Troy, NY's EMPAC], called "Solos 2." Three fine young musicians - sopranos Haleh Abghari and Tony Arnold and pianist Jacob Greenberg - were on hand to perform short works from the medieval, romantic and contemporary eras...we were invited to listen from the stage itself as Greenberg played Debussy Etudes..."
The New York Times
December 4, 2009
"The musicians [of ICE], Jen Curtis and Erik Carlson on violins, Kivie Cahn-Lipman on cello
and Jacob Greenberg on piano, played with vigor
and efficiency."
Signal to Noise Magazine
Spring 2009
"Jacob Greenberg brings out the post-Webernian pointillisms [of Crumb's Five Pieces for Piano] while also convincingly demonstrating their innovations...the performers [of ICE] hum, whistle and otherwise emote every sonority of this landmark exploration of sound and time [Vox Balaenae] with conviction...the International Contemporary Ensemble's playing is stunning throughout...Bridge's George Crumb Edition goes from strength to strength, and the fact that the composer supervises every recording renders them definitive."
Fanfare Magazine
January 13, 2009
"Volume 12 of Bridge's George Crumb Edition is graced by the virtues of...performers with incredible chops by the highest of international standards who are deeply in tune with Crumb's language and are fully capable of executing his extended-technique requirements. [...]Five Pieces for Piano provides a fine showcase for Jacob Greenberg's talents. This release fits into my category of required listening."
Washington Post
November 3, 2008
"[Messiaen's Harawi] is a huge work, rife with exotic textures and emotional complexities, and Tony Arnold — accompanied skillfully by Jacob Greenberg at the piano — gave a superb and genuinely insightful account."
Classical Voice of North Carolina
November 2, 2008
"Arnold and Greenberg are highly respected and equally committed to the performance of contemporary music. Greenberg, whose countenance resembles the composer, Kurtág, is a versatile player who performs as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player. Arnold's singular interpretation was deliciously rich in color and Greenberg's piano collaboration, perfect."
Darmstädter Echo (Germany)
July 17, 2008
"The Sayings of Peter Bornemisza was premiered in Darmstadt in 1968. The text is a sermon from the 16th century, which one experiences through drastically colored cluster sounds and hectic-expressive outbreaks of the piano (Jacob Greenberg) and by the singer (Tony Arnold). Each sound is designed emotion."
www.musicweb-international.com
October 2007
"[Wolpe's] Ten Early Songs are given fine performances by Tony Arnold and Jacob Greenberg."
Diverdi.com (Spain)
Spring 2007
"The interpretation of Tony Arnold (Ten Early Songs)...with the valuable collaboration of pianist Jacob Greenberg...prompts a vigorous recommendation of this disc of a composer who, paraphrasing the end of the song 'Epitaph' (1938), 'never sang in vain,' no matter how often he was tried to be silenced."
New York Concert Review
Summer 2006
"I was stunned by the voluptuous beauty of [Schoenberg's] 'Erwartung' and 'Nicht Doch.' In most of these songs the musical interest lay in the rich piano part, expressively played by Jacob Greenberg."
Chicago Tribune
December 19, 2005
"Knussen's violin-and-piano piece draws on rhapsodic double-stops and guitarlike brushings of the fiddle strings…David Bowlin and Jacob Greenberg ably dispatched [the piece]."
Buffalo News
September 8, 2005
"With easy grace, Jacob Greenberg played Janacek's "In the Mists," four gentle pieces full of achingly nostalgic, Old World melodies."
The Cleveland Plain Dealer
February 25, 2005
James Primosch: Holy the Firm
“Soprano Tony Arnold drew the listeners into the score’s rapturous
atmosphere with singing of tonal beauty and dramatic truth. Pianist
Jacob Greenberg played his collaborative role with clarity.”
Buffalo News
January 28, 2005
"Jacob Greenberg and Stephen Manes are gifted pianists whose individual recitals are always worth attending. So when word went out that they were teaming up for a concert of music for two pianos, it was reason for the area's keyboard fans to celebrate… the evening featured a particularly arresting performance of Messiaen's 'Visions de l'Amen.'"
Buffalo News
December 1, 2004
"Tuesday night found Jacob Greenberg walking onto the Lippes Hall concert stage, sitting at the piano bench, and unleashing his fingers in the service of Ludwig van Beethoven and Charles Ives. It quickly became apparent from the opening measure of Beethoven's "Variations in F major" that this concert would be a showcase where the composer's art and the performer's art joined together as one… the Beethoven pieces bracketed the Ives scores, embracing 20th-century experiments with 19th-century explorations…the Beethoven emphasized Greenberg's wonderful blend of subtlety and speed, and the "Emerson" of the Ives sonata was about power as a torrent of notes flew from the keyboard in angular discord before finally gliding into an almost funereal mode. The Ives songs presented in the recital were quirky in their own right…it was here that Greenberg revealed his not inconsiderable talents as an accompanist, subtlely guiding and coaching the singers along the musical path…Beethoven's great "Eroica Variations" closed out the evening in spectacular fashion, and it became apparent that no encore was needed. Everything was perfect as it was."
Buffalo News
September 11, 2004
"Tony Arnold is an amazing singer, and pianist Jacob Greenberg is an outstanding accompanist. Together, they have the ability to plunge a receptive listener into the depths of their programs through a combination of stunning power and beguiling subtlety.
"To say that their take on 'Les Nuits d’Été' was revelatory would be to damn with faint praise. Greenberg’s pianism was sensitive without being cloying, flowing behind Arnold’s special artistry and melding with it to create a superlative whole. It was one of the finest performances of this work that this listener has ever heard."
La Folia Online Music Review
May 2004
The Music of Elliott Carter,
Vol. 5 (Bridge 9128)
"The grandest offfering, Of Challenge and of Love, receives a carefully
thought-out interpretation from soprano Tony Arnold and pianist Jacob Greenberg.
This song cycle demands repeated listening to savor Carter's sensitive word
painting."
Buffalo News
October 31, 2003
"Soprano Tony Arnold and pianist Jacob Greenberg are adventurous, fearless and very adept... the presence of violinist Movses Pogossian added to the evening's electricity. Really, the room was alive.
"The accompaniments [to Schoenberg's "The Book of the Hanging
Gardens"] are harrowing, but Greenberg played them with confidence and
sensitivity. He and Arnold['s] sense of timing was excellent…their teamwork
shone in the Messiaen songs…Greenberg tossed off the capricious, dancing
piano parts [in "Epouvante"] as if they were nothing."
NOTE:
this was one of the Buffalo News's "top
ten classical moments of 2003."
Classical Music Web
August 3, 2003
The Music of Elliott Carter, Vol. 5 (Bridge 9128)
"Soprano Tony Arnold and pianist Jacob Greenberg are vital and powerful
interpreters."
Guardian Unlimited
July 18, 2003
The Music of Elliott Carter, Vol. 5 (Bridge 9128)
"In the song cycle
Of Challenge and of Love, on the poetry of John Hollander, the soprano Tony
Arnold and pianist Jacob Greenberg relish the detail that Carter lavishes
on his settings, each one absorbingly articulate and bracingly affirmative."
