Please find below our latest press reviews and quotes:
Conquering the Antarctic
February 2012, 4 ****
The Times
"...Passionately played by the City of London Sinfonia under Stephen Layton, [Vaughan Williams's Sinfonia Antartica] sounded like an underrated masterpiece, full of stark bitonal clashes and turbulent undercurrents evoking hopeless struggles with implacable Nature"
Conquering the Antarctic
February 2012, 4 ****
"Bonneville's delivery was shipshape...Under Stephen Layton, the CLS's strong playing [evoked] the music's ultimate desolation"
Conquering the Antarctic
February 2012
"Hugh Bonneville's beautifully judged and faultlessly executed narration from Scott's exactingly recorded diary set a vivid opening backdrop to each section...The reflection and retrospection of the haunting Intermezzo and the transformation of the march theme of the Epilogue into ultimate desolation were sensitively handled by Stephen Layton and his players..."
CD Review: Carl Maria von Weber: Clarinet Concertos
January 2012, 4 ****
"There's often something operatic in the way the orchestra is used to set the stage for the entry of the soloist... Collins directs the orchestra as well as dispatching the solo parts with wit and aplomb"
Nicholas Maw: The Master
October 2011
"With the City of London Sinfonia and the Holst Singers conducted by Stephen Layton...this was a timely reminder of the richness of Maw's idiom"
Nicholas Maw: The Master
October 2011
"Under Stephen Layton's clear and energetic direction the City of London Sinfonia gave a committed performance of this disturbing yet often beautiful music"
BBC Proms 2011
The New Statesman
"While English music-making is much the poorer for the loss of Hickox, his legacy will long persist in the hands of such colleagues, collaborators and institutions"
