Press

In each, Almond plays as if his fiddle’s life was on the line – in his hands, the “Lipinski” flourishes and shines in notes spun out with casual virtuosity and graceful poetry…

– Strings Magazine http://tinyurl.com/ndvbcqs →

Frank Almond, leader of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, plays everything on this disc with a slightly old-fashioned air, the concentration of tone conveying the message that he’s in love not just with every twist and turn of the music but also every sound he can coax from his very special instrument…

– Irish Times http://tinyurl.com/klp3x65 →

The fascination of Mozart’s violin, then, remains in the object itself. It doesn’t fully translate into sound — unlike the glorious “Lipinski” Stradivarius violin, for instance, which passed through the hands and lives of a number of composers beginning with Giuseppe Tartini, and whose fascinating journey is chronicled on a gorgeous recent CD, “A Violin’s Life,” with performances by Frank Almond…

– New York Times http://tinyurl.com/npw2e2u →

Cellist Tamás Varga, pianist Stephen Beus and violinist Frank Almond combined passion and elegance Monday evening, on Almond’s Frankly Music series at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music…

– ThirdCoast Daily http://tinyurl.com/mdmzdm2 →

The life of the “Lipinski,” one of the greatest of the Stradivari violins, encompasses and in a way absorbs the lives and accomplishments of those fortunate enough to have played it since the master built it in Cremona in 1715.

– ThirdCoast Daily http://tinyurl.com/lwebz88 →

The players made gripping and subtle drama of this sonata, and nowhere more than in that third movement. That sweet little theme grew ever more expansive, as if gaze and reach were turning from a single wild flower to the whole horizon. And then suddenly, shockingly, the alarm of those ripping chords from the outset burned it all down…

ThirdCoast Daily http://tinyurl.com/lowny65 →

For the first time, Almond left his Lipinski Stradivarius in the vault to focus on conducting. In real contrast to Edo deWaart’s restrained movements, Almond extended his arms, leaned back and used much of his body to shape the music, like a black swan flying through a Tchaikovsky ballet…

ThirdCoast Daily http://tinyurl.com/ktuj5ub →

Tuesday evening’s installment in Frank Almond’s Frankly Music series, at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, promised “The Art of the Cello,” and delivered exactly that, presenting cellist Tamas Varga in a tour de force program…

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel http://tinyurl.com/n62nvgb →

Pianist William Wolfram joined Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Frank Almond on the Frankly Music series at Wisconsin Lutheran College on Monday evening, playing some fabulously powerful, seldom heard, solo piano pieces by Liszt…

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel http://tinyurl.com/7wbdv4a →

By the textbook definition, a chamber orchestra is a small orchestra of about 25 players. But that doesn’t cover a chamber orchestra’s breadth of repertoire, from baroque to modern pieces, nor the kind of nuanced playing and ensemble communication that Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Frank Almond and a number of his MSO colleagues brought to chamber orchestra repertoire for Monday evening’s Frankly Music program…

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel http://tinyurl.com/kd6q5qg →

As is the custom, Frank Almond spoke casually and interestingly about his subjects, including the lack of common ground between these contemporaries. Though they admired one another and met once, Chopin and Schumann seem from different planets. In the broadest sense they shared a love of melody, though each conjured it in vastly different ways…

Shepherd Express http://tinyurl.com/kyxcf5r →

Frankly Music presented an all-Shostakovich program at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music last Monday and Tuesday evenings. Pianist Adam Neiman kicked off the program with Three Fantastic Dances and 13 of the 24 Preludes, Op. 34. Neiman often sliced the air with sharply drawn phrases, playing with assertive clarity and capturing each passing mood…

Shepherd Express http://tinyurl.com/kxduhr5 →

The fantastic new CD Portraits & Elegies (Innova), recorded by violinist Frank Almond and pianist Brian Zeger, explores the lyrical side of contemporary American music…

Shepherd Express http://tinyurl.com/nylcyqs →