" Another solo piece, Paul Dresher's Blue Diamonds, was played by Matthew McCright on piano. Unfazed by the unceasing flow of notes, McCright performed admirably, with impressive stamina for such a lengthy piece. "
Beeri Moalem - San Francisco Classical Voice, August 14, 2009
"This ensemble, organized by Russell and McCright, delivered that effect with all the compulsion it deserved. McCright also performed the Dresher "Blue Diamonds" piano solo, an extended single-movement work lasting almost one-third of an hour...the Debussy-like touch that McCright brought to this performance...This is a work that deserves more than one listening, and nothing would please me more than opportunities to hear other pianists add this work to their repertoires."
Stepher Smoliar - San Francisco Classical Examiner, August 15, 2009
"I especially enjoyed the broad range of colors and general sensibility you bring to the music. The CD has a sense of humor, of dance and imagery that gives it life."
Bruce Stark (Tokyo, Japan) May 12, 2009
"The performers featured were Jennifer Wilhelms and Matthew McCright, a classical duo who have numerous years under their belts performing together. The evening's performance from the duo was a surprising range of music going well beyond my expectations in terms of both variety and performance."
Trent Townsend-Island Sand Paper (Fort Myers), January 16, 2009
"Its opening weekend saw the YLMF get off to a cracking start. There was nothing here to daunt anyone apprehensive about "modern day music" - the festival’s subtitle - but plenty to set pulses racing.
To judge
by Matthew McCright's piano recital on Saturday and Eleanor Meynell's
lunchtime song-recital yesterday, there are further treats in store
this week.
Barely 36 hours off the plane from Minneapolis, McCright was still
right on the ball. He warmed up with the shifting patterns of John
Adams's China Gates and the ruminative First Piano Prelude
by Garrett Sholdice, newly revised. There was more gripping minimalism
from Philip Glass and a dreamily romantic Simone's Lullaby
by Terry Riley. Ailís Ní Ríain contributed Into
The Sea Of Waking Dreams - five thoughtful miniatures with brief
angry bursts.
But it was six of Steve Crowther's hugely invigorating Morris Dances that most caught the imagination. Based on the fast, swinging cross-currents of its Enigma theme, and inspired by personal friends, it flitted, flirted and flowed, with a brief elegiac interlude.
The stupendous sweep of Frederic Rzewski’s Four North American Ballads filled McCright's second half. His use of politically-inspired blues provide an entertaining thread. But the blackly remorseless Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues make Bartok's Allegro Barbaro sound like child's play. McCright's energy was always coloured by insight."
-
Martin Dreyer- York Late Music Festival/York Press (UK) (YLMF)
National Centre For Early Music, June 5, 2007
"The two main evening concerts, given by Minneapolis-based visiting pianist Matthew McCright, stood out for the focus and clarity of their delivery. His programmes included Frederic Rzewski's De Profundis, a haunting setting of Oscar Wilde for vocalising, whistling, singing and speaking pianist, and the first performance of Sholdice's Etude, which, at over 95 minutes, must have gone straight into the record books as the longest piano piece by an Irish composer.
The most notable of the festival's premieres were both by women, Judith Ring's electroacoustic Pre_per_form For Beau Stocker sounding like an electronic extravaganza for über percussionist, and Linda Buckley's Zone (solo piano, McCright), which toyed successfully with a kind of Ligeti-like mechanism."
- Michael Dervan- Irish Times (Dublin), November 2006.
"Matthew
McCright provided a carefully chosen progamme on Saturday which gave
us a glimpse of what can be achieved when post-modernism avoids the
meaningless temptation to write in one single voice from the past
(as if revealing a lost Tchaikovsky score for example)…….However
Rzewski's De Profundis really did work while doing this,
carried along by the powerful and faithful interpretation of McCright;
this was the best piece of the festival. Invention by Carolyn
Yarnell and Zone by Linda Buckley were well crafted, satisfying
pieces, fitting into the programme without being post-modern in the
same way."
John
McLachlan- New Work Notes, Journal of Music in Ireland,
January 2007
"The most poetic moment came with the performance of Lucier's Nothing is Real, in which pianist Matthew McCright recorded the melody lines of "Strawberry Fields Forever" onto a miniature tape machine located inside a teapot. After he was finished playing, McCright opened and closed the teapot as the melody played back. Sounding more like a simulacrum than a faithful reproduction, it seemed to memorialize a by-gone era. The simplicity of construction in Nothing is Real and Lucier's other pieces reveal and revel in an astonishing level of acoustic enchantment, exploring the sonic possibilities of electronic music performances and the spaces in which they are performed.
Justin Schell, March 2006 Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Art-NEWMUSICBOX Magazine
"The piano soloist was Matthew McCright, a very talented young man who is beginning to make a name for himself. His style is authoritative with a good range of motion …the very rich sound was attained under the talented fingers of the soloist."
Jerry Stephens, November 2004, Youngstown Vindicator, Youngstown, OH
"The ensemble and musical intelligence were on the highest artistic level."
Sandra
Rivers of the CCM (Cincinnati) performance by the
New Century Piano
Duo, January 2001
"I was deeply impressed by the virtuosity and musicality of his playing."
John
Walker, former curator, Young Artist Concert Series -
The Shadyside
Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, March 1997
