New York City Opera: VOX Festival 2010
Julian Wachner, Evangeline Revisited – conducted by Scott Dunn
Du Yun, Zolle – conducted by Julian Wachner
Daniel Crozie, With Blood, with Ink – conducted by Julian Wachner

…Excerpts from 10 diverse works were performed by the City Opera orchestra and chorus and an impressive roster of solo singers. Although these were essentially workshop tryouts, the performances were generally assured and effective…Several pieces upended traditional concepts of the genre. The first two [Conducted by Julian Wachner] on April 30 showed the range of what was to come.“With Blood, With Ink,” by the composer Daniel Crozier and the librettist Peter M. Krask, had its premiere at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore in 1993. It has had subsequent student performances, but still awaits a professional staging. The story is drawn from the life of a 17th-century Mexican nun, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a poet, intellectual and advocate for women’s rights, who was forced by the church hierarchy during the Inquisition to sign an oath in blood renouncing her work. In a particularly effective scene, the dying Juana (Kerri Marcinko), in a feverish state, sang an imagined duet with her younger self (Michelle Areyzaga). Driven by Mr. Crozier’s harmonically lush, lyrically soaring score, “With Blood, With Ink” emerged as a basically traditional opera. “Zolle,” which followed, with music and libretto by the composer Du Yun, was as much a dramatic concert work as an opera. In this mystical piece, a dead woman wanders a shadowy realm between memory and reality, feeling like an outsider, an immigrant, in life and in death. The composer cites far-ranging influences, from mournful Portuguese folk music to Japanese Noh Theater to Laurie Anderson.  Most of the libretto was spoken by a narrator, Hila Plitmann, while a mezzo-soprano, Hai-Ting Chinn, performed a mélange of wordless, amplified vocal sounds: plaintive ahs, restless stutters, warbles and wails. Whether this piece is an opera will matter, or not, to different listeners. Video images added an abstract scenic backdrop. I was intrigued, but not convinced that staging it would add much…Credit goes to the accomplished conductors who shared duties here: Steven Osgood, Scott Dunn, Carolyn Kuan, Robert Treviño and, especially, Julian Wachner, who conducted two works and was also the composer of one of the operas, “Evangeline Revisited.” – Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times May, 2010

NAXOS INTERNATIONAL – AMERICAN CLASSICS SERIES
The Elora Festival Singers
Julian Wachner Complete Choral Music: Volume I

In his own choral music, Julian Wachner draws on so many influences that his successes are a compendium of surprises, and even his less-successful works have engaging moments…Sometimes I Feel Alive (1998), to texts by E.E. Cummings, explores aspects of love from the sensual to the selfless through an appealing blend of jazzy pop-music rhythms, canonic writing (at which Wachner excels), and hymn-like choral blending with a near Ivesian sound…Wachner considers his own style eclectic, but on this CD it seems more combinatorial: A little of this, a little of that, adding up at its best to something new and very personal. - The Washington Post June 25th, 2010

Not quite a household name, American composer/conductor Julian Wachner is now in his early 40s and has built himself a stylistic reputation for eclecticism…Because we most often associate a composer with an identifiable vocabulary or language, it’s a bit odd to find someone so stylistically diverse yet so secure in his writing. Wachner’s command of choral techniques and effects is solid and polished. The EFS’s ability to meet the exacting demands of this music makes this recording altogether remarkable. Wachner describes his choral writing as “text-driven”. How important and effective this is becomes evident as one plays through the 19 tracks of sacred and secular works. Poetic texts by E.E. Cummings and Rilke deliver fanciful, sensitive and experimental moments always linked to a detectably romantic undercurrent…Wachner’s sacred music, by contrast, may appeal more to the structured expectations of its audience but is no less inventive than his art song. Perhaps the most colourful work on this recording is his Missa Brevis. Each of its four sections is clearly cast in a unique form with considerable variation in ensemble colour and tempo. Most importantly, Wachner never loses touch with the “other-worldliness” that needs to be at the heart of all sacred music. Naxos has produced a fine recording with the EFS, which bodes well for their projected “complete choral music” series. ATMA plans a release in the fall of more Wachner music – for organ and orchestra. - The Whole Note, Toronto, June 2010

…based on volume one of the Complete Choral Music (Naxos) by Julian Wachner (b. 1969), there is excellent work being done today. The Elora Festival Singers under Noel Edison sing like angels; they do complete justice to Wachner's music. It has a touch of the aural voicings of Pärt and Reich, but not in terms of style. Wachner uses the tang of modern harmonies as sound color. His music is declamatory or quiescent, depending on mood, and there is a minimalist touch here and there. Mostly, though, it is Wachner's extension of choral tradition via his own contemporary vision that strikes this listener. The nine works presented on this volume one have depth and integrity. Here's a composer who feels completely at home with an a cappella choir, or voices with organ accompaniment. It is a very refreshing listen. The music has moments of true beauty. Bring on the next volume! – Gapplegate Music Review, April 2010

National Presbyterian Church
The Washington Chorus and Brass Ensemble
Works by Handel, Bach, Monteverdi, Schütz, Sweelinck, Purcell, Vivaldi, Gabrieli

The explosion of sound on the first sung phrase of Handel’s anthem “Zadok the Priest,” which opened Friday’s concert by the Washington Chorus at National Presbyterian Church, was exhilarating. Music director Julian Wachner knows how to draw maximum drama from a score, and it didn’t hurt that his large chorus – over 180 singers were listed in the program – was set in a beefy, resonant acoustic. Indeed, that acoustic tended to cloud such gargantuan moments as the climactic “Alleluia” section of Handel’s “The King Shall Rejoice,” but the thrill factor was worth it. This sort of Victorian-sized choral sound is less frequently applied to Baroque music in these days of historically informed performance practice. But Wachner was careful not to let the larger scale turn into bloated or lugubrious articulation. He insured that soprano tone hinted at the purity of boys’ voices, the mezzos suggested the tang of countertenors, and the male sections displayed a notable mellowness and pliancy. Wachner’s selection of music was freshly conceived.  – The Washington Post, May 2010

The Kennedy Center Concert Hall
The Washington Chorus and Orchestra
Mendelssohn Hebrides Overture – Merryman Jonah – Mozart Requiem

…Maestro Julian Wachner led a masterful performance (of the Hebrides Overture), engaging the orchestra with his expressive, yet direct baton.  The orchestra responded beautifully to Wachner's interpretation…Mozart's Requiem was the major work of the second half of the program…Wachner conducted with nice, lilting tempos, allowing the music to simply float…The Washington Chorus under the leadership of Julian Wachner continues to astound its audiences with the exciting programs that it currently presents...The appealing youthfulness and fresh repertoire is a welcome invitation to a new audience of listeners. – The Kennedy Center Examiner, March 2010

Mendelssohn's "Hebrides Overture" enjoyed a supple and vibrant reading by the orchestra. This nautical work led seamlessly into Marjorie Merryman's "Jonah," an artistic treasure, consummately interpreted and performed. [Wachner] knew his audience…and Friday's standing ovation confirmed it. – The Washington Post, March 2010

The Kennedy Center Concert Hall
National Symphony Orchestra and The Washington Chorus
Verdi Requiem with Christoph Eschenbach

In addition to all the admirable playing by the NSO on Saturday, the Washington Chorus (Julian Wachner, music director) offered carefully balanced, vividly articulated singing. It's impossible to overstate how strongly these first-rate choristers contributed to the experience. – The Baltimore Sun, March 2010

…the Washington Chorus sang- and the National Symphony Orchestra played their hearts out. Together, they achieved magnificence and heartbreak, terror and tears. The heft and drama were there for the Dies irae, and the Tuba mirum was caught spectacularly with the trumpet answering antiphonally from up on the third-level balcony stage right. The effect was electrifying. It was the range of expression in the chorus and orchestra, however, which impressed throughout – Ionarts.com, March 2010

…the Washington Chorus sang their amassed hearts out, making the big choral moments, like the famous Dies Irae, the high points of the performance. Standing in a mixed formation, rather than sorted into sections by voice part, helped the group's intonation and blend.  www.dclist.com, March 2010

The orchestra responded by putting its heart into the music, and the Washington Chorus sang reliably and honorably. – The Washington Post, March 2010

Pollack Hall, Montréal, Québec
Opera McGill and the McGill Symphony Orchestra
Stravinsky – The Rake’s Progress

L'Atelier d'opéra de McGill avait monté The Rake's Progress une première fois en 2002. Non seulement la distribution de cette année réunit-elle, forcément, de nouveaux sujets, mais la mise en scène et la direction musicale sont également nouvelles. Le Stravinsky de 2002 avait été réussi; de même, celui de cette année. – Claude Gingras, La Presse, janvier 2010

Concerts classiques - Stravinski en bonne et due forme Les spectacles de ce type sont toujours une intéressante revue d'effectifs de la relève, test d'autant plus signifiant que l'ouvrage de Stravinski est extrêmement retors sur les plans de l'intonation, du rythme et de la mémorisation. C'était prendre un grand risque de le programmer. C'était peut-être, aussi, bien connaître les potentialités des trois jeunes artistes portant le spectacle sous la houlette attentive de Julian Wachner. – Christophe Huss, Le Devoir, janvier 2010

Tsai Performance Center, Boston
ALEA III, Theodore Antoniou
Concert in Honor of Lukas Foss

Eighteen Epigrams formed the basis for the second part of the program. This collage piece is an amalgamation of short works in honor of Lukas Foss by his former students. Though highly varied in tone and orientation, it is a lovely work, a kind of testament not only to Foss but to modernism itself. How many composed collaborative pieces of this sort, in the world of classical music, do we typically hear? It is a pleasure to have the occasion to sew together the varied feelings of devotion to a beloved teacher and to witness the result in a singular form. I noted in particular the segment composed by Julian Wachner...in the end, it was the overall sense of Foss’ legacy and presence that governed the evening. -   http://bostonartsdiary.com/

BOSTON – MAY 17, 2009
JULIAN WACHNER – WORLD PREMIERE COME, MY DARK EYED ONE
FOR CHORUS, LARGE ORCHESTRA AND SOLOISTS

For the 35th anniversary of their founding by the late beloved Larry Hill, the Back Bay Chorale chose an acknowledged masterpiece, Brahms’ German Requiem, and commissioned what one can imagine might turn out to be another, Julian Wachner’s Come My Dark Eyed One.  What the works have superficially in common are libretti based on miscellaneous poetry. While Brahms made his own selection of Biblical passages, Wachner relied on a libretto culled by Marie-Ève Munger, his Charles Jennens.  And Wachner excelled at word setting. The work developed in intensity beginning with his Randall Thompson-esque strains of crowd-pleasing choral writing to his own almost savage response to Emily Dickinson’s Wild Night. Chorus, orchestra and soloists David Kravtiz (baritone) and Arianna Zuckerman (soprano) and conductor Scott Allen Jarrett presented a determined and committed world premiere. - The Boston Musical Intelligencer, Robert Levin, editor May, 2009

MADISON – APRIL 25, 2009
WACHNER CONDUCTS BEETHOVEN, HAYDN AND ROSSINI

Haydn Symphonies are usually the specialty of regular maestro Andrew Sewell, but this time the podium was occupied by a guest, the Canadian maestro Julian Wachner. An energetic, quite athletic conductor, Wachner is also an impressively "hands-on" interpreter, shaping things very distinctively his own way: freedom with tempos, minutely detailed attention to phrasing, to nuances, and to dynamics. The overture was paced a little more briskly than some conductors would take it, but nicely etched. The performance of the symphony was filled with unusual insights. Wachner had the strings play with minimal vibrato, suggesting almost a residual Baroque character, while his shaping of the work, and unleashing of the winds, seemed to anticipate Beethoven down the road. The treatment of the Menuet third movement was most individual: unusual speed for the flanking section, while the trio theme was begun each time around with a slow swoop leading into a more relaxed flow. This was an imaginative exploration of a work usually performed with superficial diffidence. ...Beethoven's "Emperor Concerto", No. 5, with the guest soloist, the young Finnish pianist Pavaali Jumpannen....Between him and Wachner, we again were given fresh insight into a familiar warhorse. - ISTHMUS | The Daily Page by John W. Barker

WASHINGTON D.C. – APRIL 5, 2009
WACHNER CONDUCTS VERDI AT THE KENNEDY CENTER

... Julian Wachner, the conductor, led with spirit, he also tamed the music to such an extent that it was an unusually urbane trip....The chorus is sounding excellent: balanced and careful and clear...Wachner did beautifully detailed work with the singers, carrying them through every word, focusing on them with laser intensity...To his credit, he also resisted the obvious; his focus seemed to be on the less showy pieces and the chorus, rather than the big solo moments. The "Sanctus," a rapid fugue, was especially vivid and fine...- Anne Midgette, The Washington Post April 2009

WASHINGTON D.C. – MARCH 11TH, 2009
CONTEMPORARY MUSIC AT THE ATLAS

As a refreshing change from the Washington Chorus's accustomed concert format, their music director, Julian Wachner, presented an evening at the Atlas Performing Arts Center on Wednesday that focused on music by, and conversations with, a single composer…Hearing Trevor Weston describe his varied musical influences -- everything from Hildegard von Bingen to Kiss, from roots-blues to Bernard Hermann -- one might have expected to hear something more wildly poly-stylistic than his safely neo-Romantic, Anglican-tinged choral writing. Not that there weren't novel features in a couple of the pieces: "The Gentlest Thing" set a harmonically ambiguous trio of solo singers against a warmly tonal background, to sly effect, and the 9/11-inspired "Ashes" introduced affecting moments of aleatoric babbling and call-and-response antiphony between a reduced contingent of the Chorus and their guest-artists, the Congressional Chorus….The Atlas's mercilessly antiseptic acoustics worked for "Life Goes", but denied the well-honed choral performances the bloom and blend they needed. - The Washington Post, March 2009

MONTREAL – JANUARY 31ST, 2009
WACHNER CONDUCTS RAPE OF LUCRETIA

PHILADELPHIA – DECEMBER 15TH, 2008
WACHNER DEBUT WITH PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA

'Messiah' with Philadelphia Orchestra, Singers
By David Patrick Stearns - Inquirer Classical Music Critic – December 16th, 2008

… few conductors have drawn such focused, committed and meticulous music-making from the Philadelphia Singers Chorale as Julian Wachner, who has extensive choral experience in Boston and had a better-defined viewpoint than some higher-profile conductors who have taken on the piece here. He created the kind of musical framework that ensured that the weaker links would not significantly diminish the overall picture.

Given how well he assembled a fine performance in limited time, I couldn't help fantasize that he might do an annual Philadelphia Orchestra festival of Bach and Handel, since these giants in music history suffer from lack of representation in this community. That's not unusual: Those composers tend to be left to period-performance specialists, whether or not they're on the premises. And although I champion period performance more than most, Sunday's generalist Messiah required no handicaps.  Orchestral introductions to fugal passages were skillfully phrased to telegraph the meaning to come. Individual fugal voices were initially inflected to consolidate that poetic meaning. From there, Wachner built the music, line by line, as an architectural edifice, serving both the music's emotional and more purely aesthetic elements.

MONTREAL – DECEMBER 3RD, 2008
WACHNER CONDUCTS NEW MUSIC

Many American pieces start life as political commentaries or commemorations of tragic events...the Canadian premiere of Après moi, le déluge, by Luna Pearl Woolf, an American composer who has settled in Montreal with her husband, cellist Matt Haimovitz....And the music did sound inspired. Wails, whispers and other modernist devices were deployed to the greater good of the whole. The spirit was rhapsodic, but the effect strongly integrated. Not a moment dragged...It all ended, of course, with a bluesy New Orleans apotheosis. Perhaps Woolf could have found a more individual way of cross-pollinating the down-home syncopations with her own style. Anyway, the piece is a hit....Wachner drew a fiery sound...

Flood concerto holds water
McGill Chamber Choir presents an inspired Katrina commentary
BY ARTHUR KAPTAINIS
DECEMBER 4, 2008 3:02 AM
The Montreal Gazette

WACHNER CONDUCTS BACH AT THE KENNEDY CENTER

If Sunday afternoon's performance of J.S. Bach's Mass in B Minor by the Washington Chorus was any indication, choral music fans in this town may be in for surprises. The season-opening concert, at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, was Julian Wachner's first as the chorus's new music director, and he did not play it safe.

Wachner employed his full 175-voice symphonic choir but backed them not with a beefy modern orchestra but with a smallish band of baroque specialists. Their sound was robust and colorful and rarely swamped by the choir..when the chorus was allowed to sing out, colors and textures popped. There was a dark, burnished glow to the basses, and in the exuberant "Et Expecto," sopranos soared in tandem with gleaming trumpet fanfares...Wachner boldly made the Mass his own statement...it signals the arrival of a courageous new conductor.

New Director's Fresh Look at a Bach Warhorse
By Tom Huizenga - Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, November 18, 2008; C05

The Washington Chorus at the Kennedy Center                                                                                            ...he arrives as a young, dynamic force for change, a conductor who is active in opera and orchestra performance as well as in choral work....It was certainly refreshing to see a choral conductor who knows how to handle an orchestra so well. Wachner is at home on the podium, cuing the responsive strings with an understated motion of his hand, or focusing the beat with a jab of the baton. – Anne Midgette, The Washington Post April 2008

Mozart – Cosi fan tutte – Opera McGill 2008

“Julian Wachner, the conductor, had a vivid sense of Mozartean motion  –Montreal Gazette;
 “Bravo also to those responsible for the vocal and musical preparation, notably the ensembles,  and for the expert musical direction of Julian Wachner”   – Montreal La Presse

Exuberant 'Messiah' rings under young conductor
 Pittsburgh Symphony guest conductor Julian Wachner brought fresh perspectives to Friday evening's performance of George Frideric Handel's "Messiah."...The opening of the concert showed Wachner's awareness of contemporary musicology, but most of the rest of the performance went beyond scholarship to meaningful musical rhetoric based on the verbal text...Heinz Hall is a big hall, but there was ample power when needed because Wachner maintained a smart dynamic range with real softness for dramatic effect and to be considerate of the solo voices...Wachner's preference for bouncy fast tempi was almost invariably effective...the joy in "For unto us a child is born" was irresistible. The conductor's sensitivity to text produced many remarkable moments in slower music, too, including the end of All we like sheep have gone astray... In any music, but especially in longer works, it is the interpreter's handling of contrast that sustains freshness. Wachner, 37, is a conductor on the rise. – Mark Kanny, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW CLASSICAL MUSIC CRITIC
Saturday, December 15, 2007

Britten opera gets a splendid treatment
by Arthur Kaptainis MONTREAL GAZETTE
Thursday, November 22, 2007
The Wednesday premiere was a triumph for the new artistic team of Patrick Hansen (stage director) and Julian Wachner (conductor)...Wachner led the 13 instrumentalists of the so-called Black Box Orchestra with a lively feeling for pace and a sure ear for colour...The soloists coalesced into a chorus of considerable power for the Threnody.

Albert Herring – Huge Success
by Claude Gingras MONTREAL LA PRESSE
Thursday, November 22, 2007
...In the pit, Julian Wachner drew from the small orchestra of 13 musicians prescribed by Britten all kinds of effects underlining subtleties of the text...The musical preparation obviously was as neat as the playing.

Heartfelt Veterans Day Salute From the Washington Chorus
by Ronni Reich THE WASHINGTON POST
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Julian Wachner’s Kennedy Center Debut: “Wachner led a sharp account and brought out grave details...the orchestra's tone was consistently brilliant...The chorus sang with a clear sound, clean diction and a faint halo of vibrato that added shimmer without distorting pitch...the performance was a commendable and touching memorial.”

Honolulu Symphony at Hawaii Theatre
by Ruth Bingham
THE HONOLULU ADVERTISER
Sunday, October 14, 2007
...The Symphony's Hawai'i Theatre sound was at its best in Beethoven's "Egmont" Overture and especially in Haydn's "London" Symphony, No.104. Wachner presented clean, well-balanced, and well-thought-out interpretations that were both exciting and engaging.

Wachner’s “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”
            Also on the program was a previous commission, Julian Wachner's 2004 setting of Longfellow's "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" which combines music and narration far more cogently. Wachner sets up an ostinato-driven vocabulary that lets the orchestra fall into intricate, repeated vamps while text is spoken, so the musical thread remains unbroken. He also isn't afraid to let a solo line sustain the poem's atmosphere on the strength of instrumental color. – The Boston Globe, 2 August 2007

Glimmerglass Opera – Gluck: Orphée

            The orchestra under Montreal-based conductor Julian Wachner is charged with drama as Gluck intended. Wachner's focus is on mood, and one is swept up in the grandeur of the music that so magnificently depicts place and character. The Globe and Mail [Toronto]

            A MUST-SEE EVENT... – Albany Times Union

            Wachner had a firm grip on the shaping of line and his generally moderately-paced account emphasized the dignity of Gluck's meditation... – Syracuse Post-Standard

            GLUCK TRIUMPHANT…Young American conductor Julian Wachner conducted with a firm grip on dramatic pacing and musical structure… The Gay City Times [New York]

            Wachner led the Glimmerglass Opera Orchestra in a fluent and pleasing reading of the score. – Opera Today

            Julian Wachner’s conducting had poise and grace. – The New York Times, July 2007

Heureusement, on retrouve le grand Glimmerglass avec le Gluck...des personages qui bénéficient...des tempi toujours justes de Julian Wachner - Le Devoir [Montréal]

Il maestro Julian Wachner ha guidato l’ensemble constantemente senza errori e ha modellato la partitura in modo sicuro e con dolcezza. – L’Opera Ottobre 2007

Ravel (Wachner reduction) – L’enfant et les sortilèges; Puccini – Gianni Schicchi

We will add, regarding the musical action the perfect leadership of the conductor, Julian Wachner who conducted with a crisp bite. - Christophe Huss, Le Devoir (February 2007)

Opera McGill’s latest run was a bold and spirited double bill of 20th century one-act gems, and one of the outfit’s most successful productions of recent years…With such high standard of performance, there was no need for apology. – Kate Molleson, The Montreal Gazette

Julian Wachner’s musical direction provided clean vocal ensembles. Because of the limitations of the pit, Mr. Wachner had reduced Ravel’s orchestration – the intended atmosphere did not suffer.  – Claude Gingras, La Presse (February, 2007)

Providence Singers establish first endowment
PROVIDENCE BUSINESS NEWS
Published 01/09/2007
The Providence Singers today announced the establishment by its board of trustees of the group’s first endowment, The Wachner Fund for New Music. “Julian Wachner is a superb musical leader and educator who took The Providence Singers to unprecedented levels of musical growth and artistic achievement during his tenure,” said Allison McMillan, executive director of the chorus.
“As a composer and advocate for new music, he enriched and broadened the group’s repertoire by including 20th- and 21st-century works and new commissions.”

“With this fund,” McMillan said, “we commemorate Julian’s time with us and permanently honor all that he has done for the organization.”