“It is well worth paying close attention. Aylward’s suite is at turns mysterious, iridescent and daring.”
“We hear brilliant energetic rhythmic figures, imaginative sonorities in complex instrumental combinations, momentum generated by nervous, inventive figuration, lines and harmonies that always move, always inflect. Also striking are the zones of suspended motion and otherworldly calm.”
–American Academy of Arts and Letters
“Delicate and poetic, with subtle, shimmering, imaginative colors.”
“John Aylward manages to condense with absolute originality the linguistic innovations that have evolved over more than a hundred years of avant-gardes, while never resorting to sterile twists and turns nor to exaggerations suitable only for épater le bourgeois.”
“Otherworldly visions of your own are bound to ensue upon listening to this exquisitely ethereal music.”
“Gripping music of a high order” … “The manner by which Aylward conjoins his vocal and instrumental elements in the work sometimes calls to mind Berg’s handling of orchestration in Wozzeck and Lulu—a comparison any living composer, I’m guessing, would be happy to accept.”
“This is music of fascination and profundity.”
“Aylward is trying to recreate an intensely communal encounter for our own time.”
“This kind of compositional eloquence comes only from a combination of discipline and intuitive formal mastery.”
— The Boston Musical Intelligencer
“Aylward, a composer of wide intellectual curiosity … summoned textures of efficient richness, delicate and deep all at once.”
“…above and beyond all of these things, Aylward is a composer of challenging yet compelling instrumental, vocal, and electronic works.”
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John Aylward 