JOHN LIBERATORE
composer

“To hear the music on this disc … is to feel pulled along at varying speeds in multiple directions, but always forward. The word compelling fails to capture the way this music ventures forth and draws the listener with it. Inviting works better, in every sense of that word. … Had They Remained, the final piece on the album, faintly recalls the music of the young Schoenberg. However, this miniature song cycle also sounds urgently contemporary in both words and music. … The most affecting piece, Had They Remained, never ceases to surprise and captivate after repeated hearings.”

 – Nicolas Stevens, Cleveland Classical, October 2018

 
“The precise, yet subtle sounds on John Liberatore’s This Living Air are particularly intriguing and enjoyable.”

– Gordon Hicken, NACWPI Journal, Spring 2018

“There’s some seriously good music on display here, too.  John Liberatore’s four-movement suite This Living Air mixes minimalist-style repetitive rhythms with more agitated chromatic passages.  The piano sometimes provides an extension of the piano’s sound while at other times it takes off on it’s own journey.”

– Grammophone Magazine, July 2018

“…brimming with infectious patterns and brilliant rhythmic writing…”

–  Roriane Shrade, New York Concert Review, February 2018

"... there is a wit here, too as well as the utmost depth..."  

 – Colin Clarke, Fanfare Magazine, January 2017

 

"John Liberatore's contemplation of Scottish folk music is in eight short sections, and nicely manages to convey the poignancy the source material in a pungent and distinctive way..."

– Peter Burwasser, Fanfare Magazine, January 2017

“I quite enjoyed the first piece, The Investment, by John Liberatore and Niloufar Talebi…  [the composer] dealt elegantly with the 13-piece chamber orchestra.” 

– Anne Midgette, The Washington Post, November 23, 2014

 

“The most enchanting moments of the evening came from Nemo Sleeps.  … Liberatore gave us an abstract pointillistic, and often spare sonic rendering that digs deeper into McCay’s colorful fantasy world than mere program music could.   In another unexpected move, Liberatore brought the piece to a beautiful climax in the fourth and fifth movements, not with a great outburst, but rather with a relaxed and spare melancholy …”

– Stefanie Lubkowski, The Boston Classical Review, February 1, 2014