Charles Pope Jr, ConcertoNet.com, 20th November 2014
“Opening and closing with stunning presentations of Britten and Hindemith, this week’s subscription concert by the National Arts Centre Orchestra was arguably the most vibrant to date in NACO’s forty-fifth season. Major credit goes to yet another rising UK conductor, Michael Francis, who commanded the orchestra with subtlety […]
Natasha Gauthier, Ottawa Citizen, 19th November 2014
“Francis conducted the NAC Orchestra just last season, and on Wednesday he returned with an eclectic program of themes and variations.
Benjamin Britten honoured a former teacher in his Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge. It’s an early work for string orchestra, a slightly academic series of display […]
Stephanie Hayes, Tampa Bay Times, 25th October 2014
“The concert began with an odd nugget of music in Ives’ Central Park In the Dark, an experimental piece from 1906 that imagines just what the title says. The strings were sequestered off stage, providing distant sounds of night. It all rose into a cacophony of street […]
James McQuillen, The Oregonian, 12th October 2014
“Francis has earned a reputation as a conductor superhero, stepping in at the last minute for one orchestra after another and leading brilliant performances as though he’d been rehearsing with them for weeks. Affable and unflappable, he has a terrific rapport with the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, for which […]
Mareile Hanns, Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, 29th September 2014
“…The Dresden Philharmonic had it well and truly in their grasp, together with the young English conductor Michael Francis. He delivered as an inspiring orchestral leader relying on subtlety and expressivity who knew exactly how best to convey his understanding of the timbres and structural characteristics.
Edward Elgar’s […]
Jens-Uwe Sommerschuh, Sächsische Zeitung, 29th September 2014
“…Francis let the Philharmonic rage and struggle and directed them towards a desolate and yet delicate pianissimo at the finish [of Vaughan William’s 6th Symphony in E-Minor] which faded into nothing. Thundering applause for such expert endeavours.”
Paul Corfield Godfrey, Seen and Heard International, 25th September 2014
“The programme for Janáček’s symphonic fantasy Taras Bulba is of a violent barbarism which makes Game of Thrones look like Paddington Bear, with each of its three movements describing the grisly death of a member of the same Cossack family. Nevertheless Janáček’s music manages to […]
Rian Evans, The Guardian, 24th September 2014
★★★★
“Works by Janáček and his Czech compatriot Bohuslav Martinů framed this concert given by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Janáček’s programmatic symphony poem Taras Bulba tells the grisly tale of the eponymous leader of the Zaporozhye Cossacks, and under the baton of Michael Francis, the picture of […]
Carol Main, The Scotsman, 2nd August 2014
★★★★★
“With considerable stamina required all round to sustain the continuous 50 minutes of lavish scoring – Wagner tubas, two sets of timpani, cowbells and all – conductor Michael Francis placed and paced his huge orchestral forces to ascend and descend in dramatic reflection of the Bavarian mountain views […]
Rodger Jones, Seen and Heard International, 2nd August 2014
“For some reason I have missed out on live performances of Richard Strauss in this his 150th anniversary year. I have not undertaken any mountaineering expeditions either, but that is beside the point. But I have now made up for these omissions thanks to the NYOS’s magnificent […]
