REVIEWS
‘This brilliant synthesis of scholarship, musicianship, vivacity of performance…one of the best concerts in this year’s season from the Early Music Network’
‘wonderful, bold singing…excellent spoken introductions…dance and movement were integral parts of the whole concert and were always utterly appropriate’
Early Music News, Feb. 1992
‘A tour de force of sound, colour, movement and dance…energetic and virtuosic…this exhausting and extrovert concert was not only extremely original and convincing, but also great fun’
Nottingham Evening Post, Feb. 1992
‘the large audience sat enthralled…a faultlessly presented and exquisitely balanced evening of song and instrumental music…an impressive array of instruments, languages and skills’
Whitchurch Herald, Feb. 1992
‘…extraordinarily contrasted programme…setting aside the boundaries separating music, dance and drama…great scholarship, but so lightly worn and put over so entertainingly as to entrance those present’
Shropshire Life, Feb. 1992
[Of ‘The Road to Toledo’, a four-part BBC Radio 3 series devised, researched and performed by Sirinu] ‘A gorgeous set of programmes…beautifully performed by the multi-instrumental quartet Sirinu.’
The Guardian, 18 Jan. 1996
‘One day somebody will come on with a dead parrot and one of them will play it’
The Independent
`They spread out before you like the promise of a banquet…you’re seduced before they even sound a note.’
The Independent, 1 Jan. 2000
‘…their straight faces don’t deceive…they are all having too much fun’
The Independent, 1 Jan. 2000
‘Sirinu brought the house down at the South Bank…the freshness of sound enthralled them, and a collaborative processional number had them entirely tickled.’
The Independent, 1 Dec. 1995
‘Very stylish…rare repertoire and rare talent with Sara Stowe’s crystalline to-die-for voice…destined for great things.’
What’s On, 30 Dec. 1998
‘Formidably qualified, multi-talented, full of energy and daring, Sirinu venture into uncharted waters with this recording…excellent and hugely enjoyable’
Early Music Review, Nov. 1995
‘Performances throughout are exemplary, with Stowe’s bright, captivating voice full of longing and loss, life and lustiness where appropriate, arcing exquisitely above the committed, intelligent and wholly musical playing of the instrumentalists.’
CD Review, August 1994
Sirinu: les charmes de la musique médiévale – Festival Music & Remparts, Brittany, France
Sirinu jouent aussi le rôle d’ethnologues et d’historiens de la musique. Grâce à eux, l’assistance a pu qoûter le sons souvent envoûtants d’insruments aujourd’hui délaissés tels que la bombarde, le luth, la Vielle à roue ou encore…la coquille de Saint-Jacques! Une trouvaille très pragmatique et ingènieuse!
Die Alte-Musik Show, Freiburg, Germany
Da mögen ihn die ergrefeinden vier-stimmigen Choräle (dieser Baß!), das wunderbar leichte “love is free’’ der Harfen und Lautenlieder Dowlands und Holbornes besänftigt haben, zumal wenn sie derart kunstvoll mit perlend klaren Koloraturen ausgeschmückt werden wie bei Sara Stowe.
New Music for Early and Unusual Instruments – The Man Hurdy-Gurdy & Me métier 28580
Review Robert Hugill `Planet Hugill’ 12.4.2020
“The performances from Sirinu are terrific with each performer playing a number of roles. This is a disc to delight and intrigue”
The Man Hurdy-gurdy Review Rafael de Acha (Music Notes)
Quirky? Yes. Weird? Not so much. Fascinating? Absolutely!
When I sat down to listen to the métier (msv 28580) release of the
Man Hurdy Gurdy & me with music by Howard Skemptn, I was struck by the music of this English iconoclast, and by my utter inability to come up with words to describe my reaction. I got hooked from track 1 through track 14, waiting to hear what this musical maverick next had up his wizardly sleeve. When he pairs the marvellously malleable soprano Sara Stowe with a gamelan ensemble one quickly comes to understand Debussy’s reaction to the Balinese orchestra he heard back in the day at the time of the Paris World Fair of 1889.
This is seriously fun music, as entertaining as it is complex in its sonorities and its devil-may-care approach to instrumentation.