Reviews

• For Marianne, though only five minutes long, was the clear highlight of the evening. Given its brevity, it would have made sense to play it twice, as some other ensembles (like the New York Woodwind Quintet, at its recent Elliott Carter program) have lately, with short premieres.
  
  Starting on a single, sustained tone low in the instrument’s range, the unaccompanied flute line gradually takes shape as an alluring, gently chromatic fantasy. Ms. Tower avoids the unprepared leaps, extreme angularity, multiphonics and other Modernist touches that can make contemporary flute works sound strident. Instead she draws on traditional techniques to fill out the texture. Swirling figures and trilled melodies, for example, give parts of the score the illusion of an almost chordal sound.
  
  Elizabeth Mann played For Marianne with a warm, rich tone and an unerring sense of the passion that lurks just beneath the score’s meditative surface.
  Allan Kozinn, The New York Times, 04/03/2010