What the critics say
Learning new techniques is the rule of the game for contemporary specialists, learning to read one-of-a-kind notation for each piece standard working conditions. All of which makes her seamless, fluent, creative and often bravura piano playing all the more astonishing… Pritchard’s recital made contemporary music listener-friendly without compromising its art. (The Halifax Chronicle-Herald) ... an experienced concert pianist, with a technique and touch that are a pleasure to hear ... Barbara Pritchard tied all of this together with grace and style. (Fagersta Posten, Fagersta, Sweden) Pianist Barbara Pritchard opened the concert with an exquisitely poised performance of Pärt's For Alina... It enchanted the near-capacity audience, which was so hushed that one hardly dared breathe. (The Globe and Mail ) …the secure, cool Pritchard, who was perched atop a Metro white pages as a booster seat. (The Toronto Star) Pritchard is diminutive, but her sound on the piano was anything but. The opening cadenza of Parker’s Quintet [Outmusic: Rhapsodic Variations for Piano Quintet] roared out into the hall with a sound that could smother a bagpipe. (The Halifax Chronicle-Herald) …ego-free gentleness… (The Toronto Star) …the Batterie was supercharged by the presence of pianist Barbara Pritchard, who vigorously sustained her part in the surge of thudding energy that burst out from keyboard and drums… (The Toronto Star) Sunday’s performance… lasted almost 4½ hours, without intermission. The extreme length means that a performance of For Philip Guston is not just a musical event but a feat of endurance, for performers and audience alike.… The living audience remaining at the close… gave a well-deserved ovation to flutist Robert Aitken, pianist Barbara Pritchard and percussionist Robin Engelman. (The Globe and Mail ) [Feldman’s For Philip Guston] resembled a wind chime, forever twisting and turning, generating pleasant, ear-soothing sounds from Aitken’s flutes and piccolo, Robin Engelman’s pitched percussion instruments, and Barbara Pritchard’s piano and celeste. (The Toronto Star) Pritchard played them [Bartók's Bagatelles] as though she herself had written them, so well did she understand their design and syntax… Under Pritchard's fingers, they struck the ear and the imagination with the vividness of felt truths. (The Halifax Chronicle-Herald) As an exercise in timbral control, it [Norio Fukushi’s Silica] was unbeatable, as was the execution by Barbara Pritchard and Beverley Johnston. (The Globe and Mail) Pritchard conveyed the piece… with the kind of transparency in which the performer simply disappears into the piece. (The Halifax Chronicle-Herald) Peruse the bulletin boards of the music schools in this town, and you’ll probably see a notice advertising the services of a Fearless Accompanist. That’s an apt tag for the pianist Barbara Pritchard, who is also pretty ferocious on her own. (The Globe and Mail ) …splendid splash… (The Halifax Chronicle-Herald) She played brilliantly… (Bohuslänningen, Uddevalla, Sweden) …an astonishing degree of sensitivity to piano tone. (The Halifax Chronicle-Herald) |