20th & 21st Century CD’s

20th & 21st Century CD's

“Griffelkin is a ‘pants role’, here sung by soprano Kendra Colton. She is sheer delight! Easily mimicking the voice of a boy, yet still very much an opera singer, she creates a thoroughly charming little devil. One can easily imagine her cavorting about the stage.” “The opera is a triumph, and so is the recording!”

“Overall the principals offer polish and committed performances, particularly Kendra Colton who convincingly portrays the complex mix of mirth, confusion. Frustration, loneliness, and loving kindness that comprises Griffelkin.”

“Soprano Kendra Colton remains a miracle in the title role….”

“A lively cast is led by Kendra Colton as Griffelkin: a bright, sympathetic performance….”

“And Kendra Colton gave a miraculous performance as Griffelkin. We know her best in concert work; who knew she was a wonderful actress? In movement, repose, glance, tone, inflection she embodied the pure spirit of childhood that Foss composed into the music, and that earned the composer whoops of approval from an audience at the end.”

“Kendra Colton was outstanding as Griffelkin. At times you could almost believe that she and Misa Ann Iwama, equally splendid as the Little Girl who befriends him, were really children, not play-acting adults.”

“Kendra Colton, silvery of voice, played Griffelkin as a likeable naif who promises to be ‘horrid and mean’ on earth but ends up marveling at the beauties it holds.”

“The distant placement of soprano Kendra Colton in the opening bars of the work is perfectly recorded, as is the full range of her exciting, plangent soprano.”

“Soprano Colton shaped her highly expressive lines with great sensitivity.”

“Boston-based soprano Kendra Colton opened the work by delivering a lonely, wrenching a cappella wail from the back of the Lobero auditorium, her voice a cry in the dark that gradually migrate to the stage.”

“Soprano Kendra Colton sang the Japanese text, drawn from Buddhist chants, in cool, shimmery tones that contributed to the performance’s still-voiced radiance.”

“The sparest moments were the most powerful. Soprano Kendra Colton must be thanked for her moving, fittingly majestic performance. The opening movement was compelling, as Colton, offstage and unaccompanied, wailed through wordless, sorrowful, melismatic lines. Equally strong was her onstage entrance in the third movement, accompanied only by sparse timpani and the Japanese bells she carried with her. The reduced forces focused the ear, and the mingling overtones of the voice, bells and timpani produced a spellbinding effect.”

“This strangely affecting music was lyrically rendered by Kendra Colton and colorfully brought to life by the nine players of the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra.”

“Soprano Kendra Colton was at her very best, dedicating her radiant voice to the performance”“The opera is a triumph, and so is the recording!”

“He wrote the cycle for soprano Kendra Colton, who shone most brightly in the quieter, high-lying sections.... Colton’s singing came straight from the heart.”

“What I discovered was the debut of the successor to one of my favorite works for soprano and orchestra, Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915. When the orchestra accompanied the marvelous lyricism of Ms. Colton’s voice the enchantment was complete.”

Hindemith Die Serenaden

20th & 21st Century CD's

Teaching