Reviews
Browse by Season: 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009-2010 | 2008-2009 | Quotes
More articles to be added soon.
2013 Season
Corigliano Stimulates the Mind in Fulcrum Point’s “Altered States”
Sam Zelitch | I Care If You Listen | May 16, 2013
Fulcrum Point plays score live to enhance ‘Altered States’
Kyle McMillan | Chicago Sun Times | April 18, 2012
2012 Season
Headlines set to melody lines
Wynne Delacoma | Chicago Sun Times | May 6, 2012
Video opera a funny-serious sendup of TV news fishbowl
John von Rhein | Chicago Tribune | May 6, 2012
JacobTV and Fulcrum Point serve up "The News"
Mia Clarke | Time Out Chicago | May 3, 2012
Fulcrum Point New Music Project: Part reality, part video, part music, it's 'The News'
John von Rhein | Chicago Tribune | May 1, 2012
JacobTV puts 'The News' through a kaleidoscope
John Allison | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | May 1, 2012
Reality Opera Turns News Into Music, Explores Human Condition
CBS2 | May 1, 2012
Fulcrum Point/JacobTV
Jesse McQuarters | Relevant Tones, 98.1 WFMT | April 28, 2012
Dutch composer JacobTV remixes images of democracy, world leaders, global media into musical “News” commentary
Theater of One World | April 27, 2012
'Reality opera' THE NEWS brings together a pop-culture video mashup with a live orchestra
Joe DeCeault | WBEZ | April 24, 2012
The JacobTV Interview and Giveaway
Nak You Out | April 18, 2012
The Fulcrum Point: An American News Opera
Vocalo interview with Stephen Burns and JacobTV
Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble Interview with JacobTV
Skype interview with Dutch composer JacobTV (Jacob Ter Veldhuis) by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble's Chris McGlumphy
2011 Season
Top 10 Performances of 2011
Lawrence A. Johnson | Chicago Classical Review | December 22, 2011
JacobTV’s multimedia works spark Fulcrum Point benefit concert
Gerland Fischer | Chicago Classical Review | November 17, 2011
Finding Peace at the Fulcrum Point
Devin Hurd | New Music Box | September 22, 2011
Fulcrum Point's peaceful concert a very good idea
Alan G. Artner, Special to the Tribune | Chicago Tribune | September 12, 2011
Fulcrum Point marks September 11 with a diverse meditation on loss
Gerald Fisher | Chicago Classical Review | September 12, 2011
9/11: Ten Years & Beyond Concert for Peace Review - The Healing Process
Sandra Schwartz | Splash Magazines | September 12, 2011
Fulcrum Point serves up an evening of ritual with two substantial new works
Lawrence A. Johnson | Chicago Classical Review | March 24, 2011
Balancing act of complexity, accessibility for Fulcrum Point
Alan G. Artner | Chicago Tribune | March 24, 2011
2010 Season
Fulcrum Point puts the pedal to the metal
Lawrence A. Johnson | Chicago Classical Review | October 28, 2010
Chicago new music has found its groove, and Fulcrum Point is a big reason why
John von Rhein | Chicago Tribune | October 21, 2010
Metal on a pedestal, Detroit steel and Led Zeppelin fuel Fulcrum Point's "Motown Metal"
Mia Clarke | Time Our Chicago | October 21, 2010
Fulcrum Point marks 12 years with a bravura program of new music
Gerald Fisher | Chicago Classical Review | August 25, 2010
Rhymes and reasons
Mia Clarke | Time Out Chicago | April 7, 2010
Fulcrum Point Serves up bracing night of diverse new music
Wynne Delacoma | Chicago Classical Review | March 25, 2010
Beyond Words
Evan Kuchar | ChicagoNow | March 23, 2010
2009-2010 Season
Few Wagnerian gods and goddesses available to do the heavy lifting
John von Rhein | Chicago Tribune | September 17, 2009
2008-2009 Season
Jonny Greenwood hooked on new classical
Greg Kot | Chicago Tribune | November 07, 2008
Miscellaneous Press Quotes
“Based on the book by Eleanor Coerr and using the charming chalk illustrations by Ed Young (flashed on a screen behind the ensemble) the 45 minute cantata melds images, narration, and music by Kevin James to recount the poignant real-life story of Sadako Sasaki, a spirited young Japanese girl. Music, song, image, and spoken word form a seamless and deeply moving meditation. Unutterable sadness at last gives way to the hope that the warring nations will learn to make a better, safer world for their own Sadakos...With the threat of mass nuclear suicide again bullying its way to the center of the world stage, 'Sadako: Prayers for Peace' could not be more timely."
— Chicago Tribune
"The most energetic and innovative of Chicago’s younger music ensembles, the Fulcrum Point ensemble has built its reputation on boldly straddling the barriers between classical and world music.”
— Chicago Tribune
“Stephen Burns’ intrepid chamber ensemble Fulcrum Point has made a mark in Chicago, providing a bracing shot of youthful adrenaline to the local music scene and drawing a loyal audience to the group’s imaginative concerts of classical works with strong popular music influences.”
— Chicago Sun-Times
"Hand it to the dynamic young trumpeter-conductor Stephen Burns. Many groups talk about the possibilities of crossover and multicultural programming using classically trained musicians in concert hall settings. His Fulcrum Point New Music Project is doing it, and doing it with remarkable skill and consistently provocative programming.
Presented by Performing Arts Chicago, this season Fulcrum Point ranged from ecumenical meditations on Sept. 11 to Brecht and Weill to contemporary poetry and music. For their season-closer Saturday evening, they paired with the Art Institute of Chicago to offer 'Border Crossings,' a program of three Chicago premieres by Mexican and Mexican-American composers in the museum's spectacularly restored and intimate Fullerton Hall."
— Chicago Sun-Times, Andrew Patner 5/13/02
"The Wolpe quartet, a prime example of his flexibly expressive use of 12-tone techniques, made a good foil to the gritty Brechtian poetry. In his rumpled raincoat, Studs Terkel even looked like a character out of Brecht, and his marvelous readings were all too brief. Paul Schoenfield's manic and enjoyable 'Burlesque' brought the program full circle."
— Chicago Tribune 4/02
"Fulcrum Point dug into Bowles' genially mordant 'Music for a Farce' while Belden read some of Bowles' bizarrely beautiful poetry. Listening to the clash of Bowles' vivid, often violent words against his amiable but austere and unsettled musical lines, I longed to be sitting at a cocktail table nursing a drink in a casually hip spot like HotHouse. With evocative but unobtrusive black-and-white photos filling the wall behind the ensemble, this was a performance to sit back and absorb rather than sit up straight and analyze."
— Chicago Sun-Times 4/02
"The Fulcrum Point ensemble has built its reputation on boldly straddling the barriers between classical and world music. There was some of that barrier-busting in the five 20th Century works for strings, which shared a meditative serenity and a tonal harmonic base despite their composers' different ethnicities and traditions."
— Chicago Tribune 12/01
"Fulcrum Point Chamber Ensemble at the School of the Art Institute. Fulcrum Point makes children's fare a winner with rock and a show. Burns, a trumpeter and a conductor of the American Concerto Orchestra, has boundless and a restlessly eclectic taste. Ever since settling down here in the mid-1990s, he's given concerts that straddle musical categories from Baroque to jazz to pop. It was only inevitable that he, a father married to a school psychologist, should get around to music for children. What's more, he also realized that the Nickelodeon wouldn't sit quietly just for music.
No surprise, then, that this concert was really a multimedia show, complete with narration (by Channel-7 Chicago anchor Kathy Brock) and slides of crayon drawings (courtesy of patients at Rush Children's Hospital).
Under Burns' crisp direction, the musicians -- violinist Sharon Polifrone, bassoonist Lewis Kirk and piccolo ace Mary Stolper, among others -- played with verve, but they were upstaged by Brock's vivid storytelling in many (well, at least six) voices and by the beguiling, colorful drawings. Kids are notoriously tough customers to please. Fulcrum Point's performance, however, kept this bunch -- and their elders—in rapt attention."
— Chicago Tribune Music Review October 7, 2001
"Frankenstein" Lives! Fulcrum Point toys with a classic to the audience's delight.
"Conductor Stephen Burns ably guided Fulcrum Point through an often complex score. The costumed instrumentalists, whose conservatory classes surely were lacking in the finer points of the toy saxophone, performed with admirable aplomb. A highlight for me was repeated paper bag explosions at the outset, an opinion seconded by the enthusiastic outbursts from the youngsters present."
— Chicago Tribune 10/00
"The fledgling Fulcrum Point, two years old, is already distinguishing itself through uncommon and often brilliant musical juxtapositions. Its Performing Arts Chicago program focused on the kinship between jazz and classical music, as director and solo trumpet Stephen Burns led a program that showed off the group’s delectable playing. String work meshed seamlessly, with a burnished hue that triumphed over the decidedly not classical-friendly Park West acoustics. Deftness was the calling card.”
— Chicago Sun-Times 5/00
“Stephen Burns’ intrepid chamber ensemble has made a mark in Chicago, providing a bracing shot of youthful adrenaline to the local music scene and drawing a loyal audience to the group’s imaginative concerts of classical works with strong popular music influences.”
— Chicago Sun-Times 2/00
“The most energetic and innovative of Chicago’s younger musical ensembles, the Fulcrum Point ensemble has built its reputation on boldly straddling the barriers between classical and world music.”
— Chicago Tribune 12/99
“In a lean-and-mean envelope pushing mode, Stephen Burns and Fulcrum Point presented a bracing evening of edgy chamber music that was daring, imaginative and exhilarating.”
— Chicago Tribune 12/99
“Few of Chicago’s musical ensembles combine audacious programming and full-throttle musical energy with such flair as Fulcrum Point...Burns led the group in a performance bristling with energy and bite. It was a terrific performance.”
- Chicago Tribune 11/99
"The ensemble displayed uncommon exuberance in its first Chicago appearance (3/98). Burns has shown himself to be a meticulous, energetic conductor who draws the most eloquent articulations from his players, and his programming already looks promisingly irreverent.”
— The Reader 10/98
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