SAINT ELIZABETH BELLS (2012)

"In nine minutes, [the cellist] streamed through the spectrum of human emotions. Her instrument’s sound trembled and roared under the otherworldly ring of the cimbalom, a hammered dulcimer that sounds like a piano echoing in a dream." - THE BOSTON GLOBE

“A tribute to the composer’s father inspired by the church bells he heard on his deathbed, the piece cites familiar hourly chimes only once, but to wrenching effect.” - CLEVELAND CLASSICAL

"Saint Elizabeth Bells conjured up a hallucinatory world of overtones, musical material derived from church bells....the peculiar richness of the cimbalom generated layers of harmonic haze within which the cello sang with lyric melancholy." - THE BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER

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CHAMBERKati AgocsSAINT ELIZABETH BELLS
NORTHERN LIGHTS (2011)

"Northern Lights ignites with sharp dissonances, moving through a fluty warm melody in the second movement; a Newfoundland folk song comes third, followed by an emotionally complex setting of the “Huron Carol.” The fifth movement swells, then trails off in a rapidly glittering auroral arpeggio." - THE SANTA BARBARA INDEPENDENT

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CHAMBERKati AgocsNORTHERN LIGHTS
...LIKE TREASURE HIDDEN IN A FIELD (2011)


"Inspired by texts in Mattthew 13:14-16, ...like treasure hidden in a field urges the reader to keep spiritual values at the forefront of the mind. It’s structured as a five-linked movement sinfonietta, and offers the percussion section a field day. Chinese wind gongs and bells add that extra fillip of vividness to the canvas, evoking an aura of mystery and magic."– MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

"A different array of spiritual moods unfolds in … like treasure hidden in a field, which highlights Agócs’s keen ear for instrumental possibilities [and] bold sense of colour and architecture..."– GRAMOPHONE MAGAZINE

"Filled with attractive ideas..." - THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Gorgeous...a local composer to watch" - THE HUB REVIEW

"...like treasure hidden in a field winds the orchestra through a maze of left turns and unexpected flashes of discovery." -WQXR NEW YORK Q2 ALBUM OF THE WEEK

"Hypnotic" - THE BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER

"Artfully shaped for the 35-member ensemble…based on a parable from the Gospel of Matthew about the value of selling everything to buy the best pearl, its 'jeweled sonorities' include chimes, tuba, and rattles..." - NOTES ON NOTES

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ORCHESTRAL/LARGE ENSEMBLEKati AgocsLIKE TREASURE HIDDEN IN A FIELD
VESSEL (2011)

"Vessel dates from 2011 and is written for two sopranos, alto and seven instrumentalists. Agócs combines English, Hebrew and Latin poems with interrelated subjects. They represent "three perspectives on a lover addressing her beloved (or child or loved one)". It is economically scored, and each performer is sharply profiled. It’s music with a timeless appeal."– MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

"Vessel acts as a meditative, lyrical aftermath to the dizzying colors and twists of the previous music. At least relatively speaking: set for two sopranos, alto and seven instrumentalists, the music simultaneously delivers three poems in three languages – English, Hebrew and Latin Texts – building over a bed of shifting tempi and orchestral colors until only a single, repeated piano note is left to drift into (as the English text, by E.E. Cummings, declares) "the deepest secret nobody knows." - WQXR NEW YORK, Q2 ALBUM OF THE WEEK

"Music that seems to come directly from nature...it reveals a wonderfully accessible lyricism that unfolds with both drama and complexity…colorful and individual music that takes risks with both the ideas and the use of the instruments" - THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS, Citation for the 2014 Arts in Letters Award in Music

"Also sublime is Vessel, which utilizes the medieval technique of multiple simultaneous texts to create something unmistakably modern." THE BOSTON GLOBE

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ORCHESTRAL/LARGE ENSEMBLEKati AgocsVESSEL
SHENANIGAN (2011)

"The evening opened with Shenanigan, a hoedown whirl of symphonic fun...a burst of party energy..." - THE TORONTO STAR

"Shenanigan begins with loud dissonance, but soon works in a simple tune based on the interval of a fourth that captures the essence of Atlantic Canada's reels. Driven along by the strings, it is a showpiece for solo flute and for percussion. Shenanigan whirls with the energy, struggle, and humour of the people of our region." - THE ST. JOHN'S TELEGRAM (ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND)

“As a warmup to all the musical drama promised for the rest of the evening, we heard a buoyant, tidy rendition of Shenanigan, a 4-minute orchestral hoedown Windsor native Kati Agócs wrote for the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra in 2010. It's a fun, accessible piece that shows off a symphony orchestra's full breadth, and deserves to be heard again." - MUSICAL TORONTO

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ORCHESTRAL/LARGE ENSEMBLEKati AgocsSHENANIGAN
PERPETUAL SUMMER (2010)

"Gripping.... Perpetual Summer produced an array of sound montages to great effect... an ideal choice as an overture for the evening’s program."" - ONTARIO ARTS REVIEW

"A fascinating balance of strength and sadness" - PIONEER PRESS, TWIN CITIES

"Dense, bold, and wide-ranging...by turns discordantly suspenseful and richly majestic, complete with crashing cymbals and even a siren" - THE MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE

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ORCHESTRAL/LARGE ENSEMBLEKati AgocsPERPETUAL SUMMER
ELYSIUM (2010)

"Juxtaposes a tape part consisting of spoken-word field recordings recounting shipwrecks (almost a counterpoint in itself, the voices of the various narrators interwoven in such a deft manner) with a score in which the sea is perfectly heard, with the solo cello representing nothing less than the voice of God…” - BLOGUE CLAVIER BIEN TEMPERE (MONTREAL, CANADA)

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ORCHESTRAL/LARGE ENSEMBLEKati AgocsELYSIUM
SUPERNATURAL LOVE (2008)

"Melting, ice-like, high-register piano notes open Kati Agócs's Supernatural Love, followed by beams of sunlight in the violin. A slowly evolving urgency characterizes the next movement. The third movement begins with racing chords on the piano, echoed by counterpoint in the violin. The duet takes on a masculine-feminine argument, along with simultaneous pizzicato violin with percussive single-note piano. The overall effect is serene and unworldly, exploring space with sound in away that seems to evoke the time before the universe hosted life." - FANFARE MAGAZINE

“The music speaks of loss and redemption. The moods vary throughout the movements. The first is spectral, wounded, desolate, and cold. The second is open, warm, rhapsodic and elegant. The third is emancipated, explosive, monolithic, nattering frantically like music from a charnel ground. Vivid and strong work." - SHOWTIME.CA

"Supernatural Love began with silent, haunting keys accompanied by sad strokes on the violin. The strokes of sorrow tied together as the piano chimed. Nancy Dahn used her violin to amplify an inner, womanly call, gradually slowing the music to a still point. Then, the composer created a music of “empty sound.” It was an extraordinary moment, showing emptiness, or loss, as a triumph over sorrow, clearing away an obstruction to life. Therein lies the Supernatural Love.” - THE VERNON MORNING SUN

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CHAMBERKati AgocsSUPERNATURAL LOVE
BY THE STREAMS OF BABYLON (2008)

"Encases the text’s lament in music of fluidity and austere beauty" - THE BOSTON GLOBE

“The work requires two sopranos to sing in straight tone, evoking the history of medieval liturgy. The sopranos, Lisa Bielawa and the composer herself, captured this mysterious historiocity with their gorgeously clear voices” - SUITE 101 CLASSICAL PERFORMANCES

"Brief, straight and altogether beautiful" - AUDIOPHILE AUDITION

"Phrases that leap and float, and sound both ancient and contemporary" - GRAMOPHONE MAGAZINE

“A delightful piece…the two voices blend superbly, their vocal lines weaving and hovering over the sumptuous orchestral musings” - MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

"A setting of psalm 137, the lament of a people in a foreign land who can no longer bring themselves to sing the hymns of their homeland....the piece is haunting and reflective…" - THE DAILY GAZETTE, SCHENECTADY, NY

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ORCHESTRAL/LARGE ENSEMBLEKati AgocsBY THE STREAMS OF BABYLON
REQUIEM FRAGMENTS (2008)

"In the opening, piccolo and solo violin warily circled each other with super-high pianissimo notes and artificial harmonics. The effect was not so much ethereal as it was unearthly, the faint music of suns millions of light-years away." - THE HALIFAX HERALD CHRONICLE

"Requiem Fragments evolves from peaceful to anguished episodes through seamless interweaving of incandescent themes" – GRAMOPHONE MAGAZINE

"Requiem Fragments traces a lifespan from idyllic childhood and onwards through the complications and complexities of everyday life. Feeding into it are the experiences of expatriates and refugees, so it has a burning resonance today. Insecurity and loss of innocence inform the narrative, and the music conveys a sense of forward movement throughout." - MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

"Requiem Fragments was moving and taut: rolling waves of tangled activity breaking into a cathartic tonal chorale - only to crash and collapse into a quiet, scattered ending." - THE BOSTON GLOBE

"Hypnotic" - THE BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER

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ORCHESTRAL/LARGE ENSEMBLEKati AgocsREQUIEM FRAGMENTS
IMMUTABLE DREAMS (2007)

“Intimate…Its first movement is a gradually intensifying assemblage of feathery, glassy wisps; the second, dominated by a piano solo that harkens to Romantic heft; the third, an earnest elegy with tangy harmonies and an effusive cello line.” - THE NEW YORK TIMES

"The three movements of Kati Agócs's mesmerizing Immutable Dreams take a quintet through vast sonic terrain, from delicacy to angry density. The second movement is an homage to the late György Ligeti in which the piano plays a bold cadenza, while the finale, "Husks," evokes poetic images through floating gestures and thunderous sonorities." -THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER

"Immutable Dreams closed the concert with an indelible impression. Muscular and direct, it comprised three intense and strongly contrasted movements. This experience lingered well after the concert ended."- THE BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER

"A restless memento mori for Pierrot ensemble with a haunting pulse. The instruments’ colors imperceptibly blended, fragments of ostinatos picking up on each other and spiraling outward."- THE BOSTON GLOBE

““Microconcerto [in Memoriam György Ligeti]” from Kati Agócs’s Immutable Dreams is a highly concentrated piano concerto…. a tribute in sound to Agócs’s Hungarian heritage and the inspiration of Ligeti, who passed away during the composition of this work."- I CARE IF YOU LISTEN

"This piece, written in the light of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, displayed new constellations of timbre – some raw, some effervescent, some irridescent, some incandescent, and some luminous. Composer Agócs marshals this galaxy of sound into a brilliant new composition that, metaphorically, is visually striking, and aurally gorgeous.” - THE NEW MUSIC CONNOISSEUR

“Seductive” - CHAMBER MUSIC

“We need to hear more of this composer.” - THE SARASOTA OBSERVER

“Elegant and elegiac...concludes with a haunting, musically enigmatic and gentle metacrusis” - THE WHOLE NOTE

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CHAMBERKati AgocsIMMUTABLE DREAMS
VIOLONCELLO DUET (I AND THOU) (2007)

“A brooding first movement, punctuated with courtly trills, segued into a second movement in which syncopated melodies were draped across chugging ostinatos. The performance could have used more polish, but the music warranted Ms. Agócs’s inclusion in such notable company” - THE NEW YORK TIMES

“The cellists produce all sorts of wonderful sounds in pursuit of Agócs’s goal of "fusing the instruments in to a single meta-cello”
- GRAMOPHONE MAGAZINE

"With its soulful directness, and its naturalness of dissonance, I and Thou reveals much about the composer's address to the listener…it reaches the hearer through melody, drama, and clear design"
- THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS

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CHAMBERKati AgocsVIOLONCELLO DUET, I AND THOU
AS BIDDETH THY TONGUE (2006)

"A perfect large-scale solo work...As Biddeth Thy Tongue feels like a dramatic soliloquy and possesses a wide expressive range thanks to its juxtaposition of great lyricism and extended techniques" - SEQUENZA 21

"Displays gradients of nuance rarely heard from Adolphe Sax's unwieldly invention." - INNOVA

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CHAMBERKati AgocsAS BIDDETH THY TONGUE
EVERY LOVER IS A WARRIOR (2006)

"An innovative composer moved to write for the instrument after encountering a major player…a powerful, ruminative suite" - TIME OUT NEW YORK

"The other works on the program [Britten’s Suite for Harp, Carter’s Bariolage, and Hindemith’s Sonata for Harp] are about what the notes say, as opposed to the program’s world premiere, Every Lover is a Warrior, which is more about what the notes suggest. The music itself is like a series of haiku poems, written with an economy that allowed room for the listener to contemplate a multiplicity of meaning as well as the subtle interruptions in symmetry that told you that nothing was what it seemed. With Bridget Kibbey’s atmospheric range of articulation, the piece seemed as fine as any around it." - THE PHILADELPHIA ENQUIRER

"Sensitively scored...naturally attuned to the harp's evocative qualities" - THE WASHINGTON POST

”Otherworldly” - HARP COLUMN

"The virtuosic first movement of Every Lover Is a Warrior, based on the Appalachian ballad “John Riley,” had [the harpist] wheeling and tumbling through the octaves, drawing out striking, earthy tones. The solo instrument became a full bluegrass ensemble, both melody and rhythm." - THE BOSTON GLOBE

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CHAMBERKati AgocsEVERY LOVER IS A WARRIOR
HYMN/COLORATURA (2005)

"Understated sonic beauty….Kati Agócs's Hymn was a haunting work that resonated with me. It explored the contrast between the independent instrumental parts within the timbral unity of the ensemble. It was one piece that could have been longer. A rare quality in new music." -HURD AUDIO BLOGSPOT.COM

“A gorgeous Hymn that begins with the warmth of ‘Das Rheingold’…incorporates both the vocal and intervallic strengths of the saxophone”- THE BIG CITY (NEW YORK), FOUR BROTHERS BLOG

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CHAMBERKati AgocsHYMN, HYMN FOR SAXOPHONE QUARTET, COLORATURA
VERPRECHEN (PROMISE) (2004)

“Versprechen (Promise) by Kati Agócs was a tour de force for the player. With incessant double stops and encompassing the full range of the cello (at one point, a leap of two octaves brought the cellist’s left hand within a couple of inches of the bow), Promise is gripping to watch and hear. - THE BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER

"My favourite piece [on the disc] is Kati Agócs's Versprechen (Promise), which reimagines a Bach chorale using the sort of variations on note sequences favoured by Serialist composers. This is beautifully varied, highly textured writing…- MUSICAL TORONTO

“Kati Agócs’s Versprechen, for solo cello, was grimly dramatic… its source a Bach chorale, amplified into double-stop impasto, boiled away to a wisp of harmonics, finally coming into hard-won light.” – THE BOSTON GLOBE

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CHAMBERKati AgocsVERSPRECHEN, PROMISE, VERSPRECHEN (PROMISE)
IMAGINATION OF THEIR HEARTS (2004)

"Ms. Agócs’s work is a song cycle, its texts drawn from Latin, Hungarian, and English poetry and a letter from Joan of Arc in French. The fifth movement will be a setting of an Italian text, the piece’s point being the universality of the passions and the way they fire writers’ imaginations. Ms. Agócs’s imagination is fairly nimble: although her harmonic style can be fairly dense, her vocal writing has an almost 19th-century naturalness. She has, in other words, avoided the unnatural leaps and spiky rhythms frequently heard in vocal works by composers whose harmonic sense she has embraced.

Ms. Agócs’s approach to accompaniment is striking, too. Although she wrote the work for Antares, a quartet that consists of a pianist, a violinist, a clarinetist, and a cellist, she used the full group sparingly. In the opening movement, for example, the singer is accompanied by violin and cello; the fourth is scored for only voice and cello. Brenda Patterson, a mezzo-soprano with an appealingly warm sound (she is the cellist’s sister), gave the work a shapely reading that pointed up Ms. Agócs’s responsive to the texts.””

- THE NEW YORK TIMES, Review of Imagination of Their Hearts as premiered by Brenda Patterson and Antares, January 2004 (Allan Kozinn)

“The outstanding work [on the disc] is Kati Agócs's Imagination of Their Hearts, a cycle for voice and four instruments setting medieval and folk poems in five languages..." - BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE

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CHAMBERKati AgocsIMAGINATION OF THEIR HEARTS, IN THE IMAGINATION OF THEIR HEARTS