[The Philadelphia Orchestra: Messiah]
...few conductors have drawn such focused, committed and meticulous music-making as Julian Wachner, who had a better-defined viewpoint than some higher-profile conductors who have taken on the piece here...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.
– David Patrick Stearns, Philadelphia Inquirer Classical Music Critic
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[Glimmerglass Opera: 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]
.../... 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
.../...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 [Milano]
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[Spoleto Festival USA: Solo Recital]
...featured the supreme skills and musicianship of Julian Wachner in an unforgettable recital...Wachner is truly one of the most versatile musicians to grace the Spoleto Festival in recent years. ...extraordinary abilities...the chance to hear an improviser of such gifts as Wachner’s was no doubt an unprecedented thrill for the audience...The final result had discernable form, development and calculated effect – something we usually expect only from finished works. This stupefying wizardry was the hit of the recital, and it had to be heard to be believed.
- The Post and Courier, South Carolina
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[Back Bay Chorale/Emmanuel Music: Bach – St. Matthew Passion]
It was an experience akin to one’s first exposure to the young Peter Sellars. There was genius here and no mistaking it
- The Boston Globe
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[Opera McGill: Wachner – Evangéline Revisited]
Its concept is unusual and bound to arouse controversy when the work begins to get around. And it will, because the music is colorful, varied, assured, and strong... Wachner is a composer with a real sense of drama, and he knows how to solve practical problems. Wachner's music packs a punch, too. The composer presents many styles without ever creating the effect of pastiche...There is quite a bit of folk or folk-influenced material; there are cabaret episodes and lots of dance music; Verdi, Stravinsky, Britten, and others are evoked. There are grinding dissonances, but also much melody, glisteningly orchestrated, and with prominent solos for many instrumentalists who become storytellers, too.
- The Boston Globe
.../...The music of Julian Wachner was responsible for most of the applause...at turns stentorian and lyrical, but always direct, and splendidly wrought...he was also a good conductor...the orchestra was superb in the pit.
- The Montreal Gazette
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[Pittsburgh Symphony: Messiah]
The performance went beyond scholarship to meaningful musical rhetoric based on the verbal text...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...Wachner, 37, is a conductor on the rise.
- Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
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[Honolulu Symphony: Beethoven/Haydn Symphonies]
Wachner presented clean, well-balanced, and well-thought-out interpretations that were both exciting and engaging.
- Honolulu Advertiser
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[Chicago Symphony Hall: Wachner Triptych for Organ & Orchestra]
“Logos” is a sonic tour de force, making full use of colors, dynamics, and rhythmic energy characteristic of organ and orchestra. “Agape,” which opens with an organ solo in which one feels bathed in love, is a welcome contrast to the surrounding movements. The concluding section, “Angelus,” demanding the utmost from all the players, is filled with complex rhythms and textures and brings the extended work to a stunning climax.
- The American Organist
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[Red House Opera Group: Albert Herring]
- Julian Wachner has musical intelligence and personal charisma… Britten is one of Wachner's passions, and the conductor led the performance with skill, gusto, humor, and warmth; orchestra and singers collaborated as chamber musicians.
- The Boston Globe
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[Toronto Operetta Theatre - Candide]
Wachner so adroitly highlighted the abundant humor of parody and exaggeration in the score that Bernstein's wit moved repeatedly moved the audience beyond smiles to laughter.
- Opera News
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[Solo Improvisation Recital: L’Oratoire de St. Joseph, Montréal]
...Imagine: a contrapuntal web of four voices, something a student composer might labour over for weeks, emanating directly from the head of Julian Wachner... most people would have to practise to perform something like this. Wachner just made it up... In the concluding Toccata Wachner again demonstrated his formidable talent for reaching an impressive conclusion.
- The Montreal Gazette
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[Opera McGill: Cosi fan tutte]
Julian Wachner, the conductor, had a vivid sense of Mozartean motion – a good thing in a minimally cut performance of 3.5 hours ...Bravo also to those responsible for the vocal and musical preparation, notably the ensembles, and for the expert musical direction of Julian Wachner.
- La Presse & The Gazette
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[CD: Wachner: Sacred Music]
The sheer sense of a peace at the conclusion of At the Lighting of the Lamps is one of the most magical moments I have experienced in a contemporary choral work..
- Fanfare Magazine
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[The Washington Chorus: Fauré, Sharpe, Brahms]
... a striking choice...he is something of an exotic bird: a conductor who has, and plans to keep, a career in opera and the orchestral repertory as well as choruses. 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...
- The Washington Post
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[San Diego Symphony: Messiah]
It was quite an introduction to the Hollywood-born conductor...Blending scholarship and expressivity, he was an illuminating presence...a sonorous success, worthy of the standing ovation it received.
- San Diego Union-Tribune
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[McGill Symphony Orchestra and Symphonic Choir: Verdi Requiem]
<<Wachner : le Requiem d'un vrai chef>>...Ce Requiem magistral et bouleversant, nous le devons à Julian Wachner, chef américain actif à Montréal sur plusieurs fronts, notamment à McGill dont il dirigeait de main de maître le choeur de 250 voix et l'orchestre de 80 musiciens. De toute évidence, M. Wachner avait revu la partition en profondeur. Ce Requiem en était un de réflexion, avec quantité de détails insoupçonnés, à commencer par les toutes premières mesures, abordées «il più piano possibile» (comme l'indique Verdi) et encore plus lentement que prescrit. Immédiatement, le ton était donné. Plus loin, en saisissant contraste, les fortissimos répétés de l'orchestre et du choeur, les sifflements des bois tranchant sur les appels des cuivres allaient toujours servir une expression d'une infinie grandeur. Les détails encore. Quand entend-on le discret solo de trompette dans le Lacrymosa? Ou les trémolos des violons en divisi immédiatement avant le Sanctus? Wachner a pensé à tout cela et à bien d'autres subtilités. Et ces silences. Il ne craint pas de les souligner et même de les faire durer après les tutti les plus terrifiants, ou encore entre les répétitions du nom «Christe», conférant ainsi une inhabituelle éloquence au discours. Ce choeur et cet orchestre sont formés d'étudiants et leur prestation fut généralement très en place et, surtout, très émouvante.
- La Presse [Montréal]
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[Wachner Rilke Songs]
...the settings are text driven and completely immersed in the descriptive color of the native tongue in which the Rilke poems are set. Thick and dense textures give way to unison and simple four-part homophony. Wide tessituri are explored but not exploited. Bi-tonality permeates much of his writing style. Performed in its entirety, or two or three as a set, they are an outstanding contribution to choral literature.
- Choral Journal
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[Chicago Orchestra Hall: Escaich, Miller, Proulx Concerti]
Formidable, prodigious, extravagant...Julian Wachner is a master at the podium with clarity of beat and a complete command of the intricate scores.
- The American Organist
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[National Arts Centre Orchestra: Messiah]
Much of the credit goes to conductor Julian Wachner...The orchestra played magnificently.
- The Ottawa Citizen
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[Back Bay Chorale/Emmanuel Music: Bach: Mozart - Requiem]
Wachner has shown the kind of technical command, large-spiritedness, and fiery imagination that all but shout to the skies: “Major Talent!” But for all of Wachner’s alertness to authentic performance–practice niceties, there seems to be a fire-breathing Verdi conductor in him, too…Wachner brought this one to blazing life...
- The Boston Globe
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[McGill Chamber Orchestra: Mozart – Bastien und Bastienne]
- Mozart’s score captures such bizarre frivolity perfectly, with skillful orchestral writing that foreshadows the brilliance of his later style. The sound was warmly portrayed by a McGill Chamber Orchestra and conductor Julian Wachner in most elegant form.
- The Montreal Gazette
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[Boston Conservatory Orchestra: Brahms, Beethoven, Ravel]
Wachner led a fiery performance of Beethoven's ''Egmont'' Overture and a compelling account of Brahms's Third Symphony...Wachner's handling of the limpid and sighing third movement was masterly.
- The Boston Globe
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[McGill Cappella Antica, Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir: Monteverdi Vespers]
A master of balancing diverse elements, Wachner deserved even more credit for the rhythmic exactitude of his conducting.
- The Montreal Gazette
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[Opera McGill - L’enfant et les sorteliges/Gianni Schicchi]
... perfect leadership of the conductor, Julian Wachner who conducted with a crisp bite.
- Le Devoir
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Wachner's Clarinet Concerto...begins with a pulse that generates cloudlike bursts of color and begins to push them around, like parts of a mobile; the other two movements are jazzy, energetic, and ingenious.
- The Boston Globe
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