Classical Singer

A Singer for All Seasons - Baritone Thomas Meglioranza

May 2010

by Linda Richter

When Thomas Meglioranza began thinking about a career in music he had no formal training. But with a passion for music and singing as a spark—and his choir director at Grinnell College, John Rommereim, fanning the flames—he began the years of hard work on his vocal art. Now an established and successful singer, Meglioranza shares how he has forged an eclectic career of recital, concert, and opera work in genres from Baroque to Contemporary.
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The Washington Post

 

Parker String Quartet at Library of Congress

December 21, 2009

By Joe Banno

The Parker String Quartet -- a youthful ensemble of New England Conservatory grads -- brought freshness and light to the first of the late quartets, the E-flat Quartet, Op. 127, at the Library of Congress on Friday. There was a notable ardor and tenderness to the first movement, a rapt reflectiveness in the second, and subtly inflected, quicksilver engagement with Beethoven's intricate writing in the Scherzando and Finale. Nothing was offhand or superficial in the Parker's emotionally mature reading, but the players found the breath of youth under the composer's autumnal ruminations.

Haydn's Quartet in C, Op. 20, No. 2, drew a performance that was so light on its feet it was practically airborne, though the ensemble also made compelling work of the plunge into darkness at the opening of the slow movement. And in Henri Dutilleux's moody and mysterious first string quartet, "Ainsi la Nuit," the Parker distilled a potently unsettling atmosphere from coloristic devices like sudden bursts of pizzicato, a series of eerie upper-string harmonics and the evocatively slow decay of released notes. Stradivari, Amati and Guarneri instruments from the library's collection, loaned to the musicians for this recital, contributed silver-toned elegance to everything they played.