The music of Adam Roberts, as showcased on this collection, is both smart and sensuous, a winning combination.
An album [Bell Threads] that shines whether the setting is solo, duet, trio or quartet, the unpredictable time signatures, very precise gesturing and unconventional rhythms make for a chamber experience you won’t soon forget.
Roberts’ approach is focused with a brave sense of acoustic adventurousness and, using top-notch ensembles and soloists, this release [Bell Threads] enraptures ear and mind.
The alluring work [Bell Threads] contrasts soft, melodic lines with a range of harmonics and glissandi that create a kaleidoscope of sound.
Nostalgia Variations by Adam Roberts is the capstone work of the album, clocking in at just a little over 20 minutes…Roberts crafted a wonderfully elaborate piece based on a simple idea and Transient Canvas did a masterful job executing that vision, and it is a perfect choice as the closing piece for the album.
Roberts’s fractured, attractively kinetic score, for chamber ensemble and electronics, keeps the ear engaged throughout the 90-minute work.
…bubbling with polyphonic intricacy and intensity.
In his amazingly lush score, Roberts employs electronics, and the resources of his four singers, and four instrumentalists to create “two distinct musical spaces” that translate the life of the mystic poet Rumi into a “modern tale set somewhere in the Midwest.”…In all, this opera is quite successful and makes for a powerful evening.
…urgently dynamic, well-made, and strangely moving…a formidable ear, possessed of a compositional toolbox that would be the envy of any of his contemporaries.