After getting panned in Kansas City, James Oestriech of the New York Times
had this to say about a piece recently mentioned on this list:

   Almost a world premiere, in fact, for Susan Botti's "Within Darkness,"
   commissioned by Orpheus, had been played in only two concerts
   preparatory to this one.  Ms. Botti calls the work, with solo violin,
   a miniconcerto, and she recounted its inspiration from the stage:
   the experience of finding unsuspected color and intensity in shadow,
   first in Vermeer paintings, then in a Vermont night.

   Here, indeed, in a piece grounded in drones, pedal points and ostinatos,
   she conjured a small riot of color from materials of little initial
   promise.  Along with further challenges to the orchestra, she afforded
   ample opportunity for display to the violinist, Martha Caplin.

   Although Ms. Botti is a soprano of considerable accomplishment,
   the solo writing was more violinistic in its technical demands than
   lyrical in any traditional vocal sense.  Her basic idiom, in fact,
   was tough and gritty; it is a rare pleasure these days to encounter
   a young composer grappling with real emotional and psychological
   issues in fresh and modern terms rather than falling back on an easy
   post-Romanticism.

Bottom line: who cares if the flyovers listen? Or what they say? Though it
is very difficult to tell the style of the piece from the NYT's description
- it could be anywhere from minimalist to modernist - both reviewers are
clearly more concerned with what agenda the work advances rather than the
work itself...

Stirling