Welcome to Jorge Martín's Press Room

"Perhaps the most beautiful was Addison composer Jorge Martín's The Brain, a setting of the Emily Dickinson poem of the same name. ... this work, despite its difficult harmonies, proved haunting yet tender and quietly dramatic. ... Director Amity Baker and the 22 other choristers successfully delivered this fascinatingly beautiful work with flair." - Jim Lowe, Barre-Montpelier Times Argus (April 13, 2005)

Before Night Falls

"Mr. Martín's score is tonal and shapely. The piano writing - that is, the eventual orchestral score - uses Cuban rhythms and strong, active bass lines, but is not overtly folksy. Where tension is necessary - in solo arias by Rey (Arenas) and Ovidio (his mentor), and in prison scenes in which Rey is beaten and his manuscript is burned, the writing is muscular and dissonant. The vocal writing, though, is consistently lyrical, and these scenes included several memorable stretches, most notably a trio, Unhappy Island." Read the entire review. New York Times (May 4, 2005)

"In Search of the Next Great American Opera" by Anne Midgette, New York Sunday Times feature article.

"Mr. Sylvan's performance was a shattering tour de force. . . . Martín's music had tensile strength, declamatory sweep and often poignant lyricism. . . . At a time when so many song composers are placating audiences, Mr. Martín's ambitious and challenging cycle stands out." - New York Times (June 11, 2000)

"Martín has written what seems a masterpiece—a song cycle that lets the poems spew forth naked childhood experience, but wraps that experience in music of unforgettable purity and savage intensity." — The Washington Post (Feb. 2, 2002)

"something epic and monumental. . . . The Glass Hammer is the most perfect match of word and music in an art song cycle of this length that I know by any American composer--ever!" — Eclectica Magazine

"... extraordinary... revelatory.... What Martín has achieved in these 'scenes from childhood'... is quite remarkable. Employing a host of American idioms, including gospel and jazz, he embraces the poems' atmospheres and feelings in tellingly animated, probing and expressive gestures. Martín... couldn't have tapped a more ideal team to perform his songs...." - Cleveland Plain Dealer

"[Jorge Martín] knows how to write beautiful melodies and produce colorful harmonies. Thoroughly convincing." - Wiener Zeitung (July 1993)

		Photo:Lisa Kohler
The Brain "Perhaps the most beautiful was Addison composer Jorge Martín's The Brain, a setting of the Emily Dickinson poem of the same name. ... this work, despite its difficult harmonies, proved haunting yet tender and quietly dramatic. ... Director Amity Baker and the 22 other choristers successfully delivered this fascinatingly beautiful work with flair." - Jim Lowe, Barre-Montpelier Times Argus (April 13, 2005) Before Night Falls "Mr. Martín's score is tonal and shapely. The piano writing - that is, the eventual orchestral score - uses Cuban rhythms and strong, active bass lines, but is not overtly folksy. Where tension is necessary - in solo arias by Rey (Arenas) and Ovidio (his mentor), and in prison scenes in which Rey is beaten and his manuscript is burned, the writing is muscular and dissonant. The vocal writing, though, is consistently lyrical, and these scenes included several memorable stretches, most notably a trio, Unhappy Island." Read the entire review. New York Times (May 4, 2005) "In Search of the Next Great American Opera" by Anne Midgette, New York Sunday Times feature article.		"A 'Beast' of marked superiority . . . a vivid, witty set of pieces . . . Mr. Martín wields a sharp pen . . . each opera catches the funny and disturbing aspects [of the stories] in music that is unfailingly pungent and often asserts itself in short, driving phrases. Instrumentation is vivid - and different in each work. The best-known tale, Tobermory . . . swings along delightfully in a mixture of cool jazz, tango and ragtime, culminating in a vigorous vocal quintet. The two-character Sredni Vashtar . . . is wonderfully colored by winds and percussion . . . The Interlopers and The Mappined Life, short and tart, are equally well-aimed . . . a terrific show." - The New York Post (June 1996) & The American Record Guide (September/October 1996) "a compelling quartet of new chamber operas . . . Two of the operas were written in an expansive, unabashedly romantic, post-Wagnerian idiom . . . rollicking Tobermory boasts an eclectic score that spoofs a range of Italian opera conventions - the elegiac bel canto aria, the 'vendetta' ensemble - and draws, as well, on Richard Straussian lyricism; ragtime; and jazz." - The New York Native (July 1996)
*Plundered Hearts* New York Times review, April 21, 2003 The Glass Hammer "Mr. Sylvan's performance was a shattering tour de force. . . . Martín's music had tensile strength, declamatory sweep and often poignant lyricism. . . . At a time when so many song composers are placating audiences, Mr. Martín's ambitious and challenging cycle stands out." - New York Times (June 11, 2000) "Martín has written what seems a masterpiece—a song cycle that lets the poems spew forth naked childhood experience, but wraps that experience in music of unforgettable purity and savage intensity." — The Washington Post (Feb. 2, 2002) "something epic and monumental. . . . The Glass Hammer is the most perfect match of word and music in an art song cycle of this length that I know by any American composer--ever!" — Eclectica Magazine "... extraordinary... revelatory.... What Martín has achieved in these 'scenes from childhood'... is quite remarkable. Employing a host of American idioms, including gospel and jazz, he embraces the poems' atmospheres and feelings in tellingly animated, probing and expressive gestures. Martín... couldn't have tapped a more ideal team to perform his songs...." - Cleveland Plain Dealer		Tobermory "exquisite . . . It's comedy made moving, thanks to Jorge Martín's affecting music and Andrew Joffe's witty lyrics." - The Washington County Chronicle (August 1997) "a well-knit, multi-layered work with wonderfully melodic arias and an interesting score. . . [Martín and Joffe] successfully kept all [Saki's] darker undercurrents . . . Colorful and exciting." - The Glens Falls Post-Star (August 1997) "as fine a modern opera as I've reveled in for ages . . . with a wickedly witty libretto . . . an accomplished, smooth work that is lyric theater at its best . . . often hilarious, always sophisticated lyrics . . . colorful, tune-filled score . . . It is difficult to single out individual pieces, as all the music works, but there is a sextet midway through I wouldn't mind hearing a few hundred more times, and an ensemble later on where the guests plan Tobermory's demise is as funny as music this beautiful gets . . . . Here's hoping some recording company is daring enough to record this genuinely thrilling opera." - The Troy Record (August 1997) "an absolutely brilliant one-act American opera . . . The clever and witty piece is filled with really wonderful ensemble numbers." - The Lake George Daily Gazette (August 1997) "exciting . . . compelling . . . complex and multi-layered . . . sizzling crescendi . . . sometimes maniacal musical score." - The Schenectady Chronicle (August 1997)
Beast and Superbeast "carefully balanced and contrasted, always entertaining and often hard-hitting, focused on relations between humanity and animals, and usually showing humans as second best. The librettos by Andrew Joffe . . . preserve Saki's often savage irony, his inclination toward the macabre (sometimes with supernatural overtones) and his affection for surprise endings. Composer Jorge Martín . . . is a versatile master of conservative modern idioms who draws exactly what he wants at any moment from an extensive musical vocabulary . . . Sredni Vashtar is a witty, psychologically convincing and theatrically chilling 40-minute study of conflict between the generations . . ." - The Washington Post (March 1996) "likeable, eclectic scores . . . these fabulously wickedtales made for a provocative and amusing evening of theater . . . intricate, dramatic music . . . [Tobermory features] a brilliantly written sextet." - The New York Times (June 1996) "A roaring good time. . . . the most ingenious opera of the metropolitan Washington area season, and also, one of the best . . . The score is . . . compelling, sometimes discordant and harsh, yet also melodic and flowing, with a few choice ensembles to titillate the ear . . . the kind of theater experience we all hope for - a good chuckle, some surprises, but also a lingering disquiet, something to mull over . . ." - Montgomery Gazette (March 1996)		"Tobermory showed a deft hand at opera writing . . . Martín's music is impassioned and formal at once. The ensemble numbers were especially creative and original. The vocal writing was graceful and must have made difficult but truly grateful challenges for the singers. This is a composer to whom opera companies should pay attention. Close attention." - Shelburne (Vermont) News (August 1997) Saxophone Quartet "[Jorge Martín] knows how to write beautiful melodies and produce colorful harmonies. Thoroughly convincing." - Wiener Zeitung (July 1993) OTHER COVERAGE & INTERVIEWS: Time - March 6, 2000 p. 75 "Back to the Future" by Terry Teachout Burlington Free Press - March 4, 2000 Seven Days - March 1, 2000 Out in the Mountains (Vermont) - October 1999 Addison Independent (Vermont) - June 24, 1996 The Montgomery Journal (Maryland) - March 8, 1996 American Record Guide - Sept./Oct. 1996