Reviews of Works
Aqua
“the music comes across as at once exhilarating and dangerous”
— Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times
“If music has the capacity to elicit a three-dimensional vision, this was it”
— Michael Huebner, The Birmingham News
Beautiful Ohio
“bitterly beautiful… riveting tension”
— Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times
“Song of haunting beauty and profound alienation”
— Bruce-Michael Gelbert, qmetropolis
Bride of the Island
Brion
“a haunting, quirky and continually inventive chamber work”
— Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times
“brings to mind the clean, harmonious lines of the architecture in an uncanny way”
— Ira Byelick, American Record Guide
Chamber Music
“challenging yet enriching anyone’s notions of melody or, in the molto preciso passage, even of music”
— Kathleen M. Bennett, Richmond Times-Dispatch
Exiles
“goes immediately onto this year’s must-hear-again list”
— Richard Buell, The Boston Globe
“Meltzer’s strong talent for crafting persuasive musical narratives”
— Christian B. Carey, Musical America
Kreisleriana
“It’s from his “Kreisleriana,” brilliantly crafted yet elusive music that seems at once playful, dangerous, waltzing and jumpy.”
— Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times
Piano Quartet
“great clarity, and paradoxically, mystery”
—Robert Carl, Fanfare Magazine, Issue 41:5 May/June 2018
“novelty and nostalgia interact in a mesmerizingly intricate ballet… significant, splendidly-score music”
—Joseph Newsome, Voix des Arts, July 7, 2018
Rumors
“a dictionary of colorful effects”
— Allan Kozinn, The New York Times
Sindbad
“in every possible sense, a knockout”
— Hugh Vickers, Oxford Times
“a subtle and imaginative piece”
— Joshua Kosman, The San Francisco Chronicle
Snow White
“utterly marvelous”
— Heuwel Tircuit, San Francisco Classical Voice
That Obscure Object of Desire
“a stunning palette of differing sonorities”
— Stephen Smoliar, The Examiner
Toccatas
“effortless navigate the genre with a non-formulaic outlook and fresh harmonic
invention at all times”
— Jed Distler, Classics Today
“fascinating in its unusual, unique sound world”
— Giselle Reimann, Basler Zeitung
Two Songs from Silas Marner
“inexorable emotional power”
— Allan Kozinn, The New York Times
“a very sensitive and moving setting”
— Ira Byelick, American Record Guide
Variations on a Summer Day
“vividly responsive… a distinctive sound world on the fly”
—Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, January 17, 2018
“music that projects real ambition and a striving for beauty”
—Robert Carl, Fanfare Magazine, Issue 41:5 May/June 2018
“discloses a rare affinity for perceiving the inherent song in words and fashioning music that manifests that song”
—Joseph Newsome, Voix des Arts, July 7, 2018
“summoning up sounds from his ensemble that seem nearly impossible”
—Sydney Boyd, American Record Guide, May/June 2018
“He uses music to mirror images in the music, conjuring astonishing gulls at the start…. There’s dramatic invocation… marvelous, soaring, restless a cappella melody…. ”
— Brian Schuth, The Boston Musical Intelligencer, July 25, 2016
Virginal
“alluring, imaginatively scored short work with its fresh harmonic language”
— Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times
“a Stravinskian neoclassicism for the age of Bang on a Can”
— Ian Quinn, American Record Guide
Vision Machine
“organic, original, and outstanding”
—Lee Hartman, KC Metrpolis
“imaginative and evocative”
—Libby Hanssen, Kansas City Star
“breezy and scintillating”
—Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, The New York Times