The orchestra is a vessel for swirls of colour and animated incident in the creative hands of Donald Crockett.  The three works the Boston Modern Orchestra Project perform on this new disc show the American composer fully engaged with nature, especially in his home state of California, as well as myriad emotional states.  Crockett has a knack for developing musical kernals and summoning rich contrasts of atmosphere.

The oldest piece from 1990, is Wedge, which explodes with striking motivic ideas and varied textures...what we hear in less than 10 minutes is an explosion of brilliant woven materials.

Crockett wrote his Viola Concerto (2012) for his wife, Kate Vincent, whose focus and sensitivity are stamped on every moment of this vivid four-movement work.  The piece takes the soloist and orchestra through a kaleidoscopic series of encounters – at turns warm, playful, argumentative and whirlwind.  It is a superb addition to the viola repertoire.

The five movements of Blue Earth (2002) portray aspects of nature – beauty, majesty and fury – without ever sounding like Debussy.  Crockett paints his land- and seascapes with exceptional finesse and power, finding inventive ways to meld winds brass, strings and percussion into something of elemental eloquence.  Gil Rose and the Boston ensemble raise the sonic roof when they aren’t savouring the delicate pleasures in Crockett’s music.

Donald Rosenberg, Gramophone magazine

Donald Crockett’s new opera made its world premiere to an enthusiastic audience at a newly vibrant Japan America Theatre.  The Venice Beach locale in which the action takes place – during the filming of a documentary on a middle-aged poet’s life including the death of his wife and the intervention of a Faustian devil – is felt mostly through the kind of obsessive introspective reflection that is Venice’s truest calling card and only tangentially through its sandy shores.  The music, played by an accomplished pit band of great tonal beauty and precision, is a treasure chest of sounds, intimate effects and bursts of lyrical beauty which sometimes provide background and often participate in the musical dialogue; the book delivers poetry that travels along synapses of the English language directly into private recesses of the heart. The production has a great sense of physical proportion and uses its simple set of materials even on a sparse stage to very great effect. The device of integrating a huge video screen, essentially one entire wall of the living room type space in which the one-act opera takes place, serves as an ongoing trigger for setting the poet, and the audience, off into flights of fancy.  The four singers formed an admirable ensemble cast… (the subtitles) position onstage brought an exciting laser focus to the opera’s magic.

‘Whistling in the Dark…is full of interesting and fresh sound combinations and extremely effective use (not over use!) of extended woodwind techniques. It is energetic and rather quirky, with a contrasting section of glacial, beautiful calm. Extant...is a work in two movements – the first a beautiful song for bassoon with gentle, crystalline accompaniment; the second a quick rhythmic interplay of rich chords with seemingly offhand bassoon comments. These are excellent performances, and the composer’s skill in making instruments work together as a team is very refreshing.’                American Record Guide