Gramophone Magazine Rave for “An Eventful Morning in East London”

Here’s a super review from Richard Bratby in Gramophone for An Eventful Morning in East London with soloist Harriet Mackenzie on Nimbus Records. Read the whole thing here

“This latest, typically ambitious disc from Kenneth Woods, conductorand his resurgent English Symphony Orchestra is a lot more colourful than its distinctly urban artwork might suggest.

“But of course you’ll hear that as soon as Harriet Mackenzie – the dedicatee of several of the pieces collected here – and her duo partner Philippa Mo launch into the first movement of Patterson’s Allusions. Soloists and orchestra alike play with bracing clarity and momentum; in fact, throughout this disc – whether in the transition into the riotous car-crash finale of Rob Fokkens’s piece or the long sunset fade of Deborah Pritchard’s Wall of Water – the performances are skilfully paced and vividly characterised. Mackenzie isn’t afraid of a bit of rosin and horsehair; conversely, in slower music such as the long, gradually welling cadenza that opens Wall of Water or the lush song of Emily Doolittle’s falling still, she sustains a marvellously sweet and fluid tone.”