“Blending 20th-century harmonic gestures with charmingly lyrical and programmatic themes, the pieces featured on this album are both enticing and, at times, a bit challenging…exudes a palpable sweetness and joy throughout.”

Rick Anderson, CD HotList

"sprightly ...soulful ...songful
Três Cançöes (Three Songs), commissioned by Brazilian soprano Veruschka Mainhard, set poems by Mainhard’s then-seven-year-old daughter Laura.The texts ... are delightfully imaginative and charming, as is the music, charmingly performed by bright-voiced soprano Alisa Jordheim and pianist Kuang-Hao Huang." 

Michael Schulman, The WholeNote

“Performances are uniformly excellent.
[The musicians] have represented [Rami Levin] splendidly with their engaged treatments, and she's provided them with terrific material to perform…seven appealing works that are imaginative, diverse…and distinguished by high levels of craft. [Soprano Alisa] Jordheim delivers the material with immense flair and feeling and [pianist Kuang-Hao] Huang's performance is as stellar. Jordheim gives resplendent voice to stirring renditions of “Sixpence,” “Apple Pie,” “Hey, Diddle Diddle,” and “The House That Jack Built.” It's easy to picture ten-year-olds as captivated as adults as the players make their merry way. One of the album's more fascinating excursions is Línguas Fraternas (Fraternal Languages) for how it explores the rapprochement between different musical languages [performed by] violist Anthony Devroye. [I am] struck by the gracefulness of the counterpoint in the five-minute piece and by Quintet Attacca's engrossing performance.”

Ron Schepper, textura

“With many of the world-class artists performing on Wings being well-known to Chicago audiences, such as Mathias Tacke, Eugenia Moliner, Denis Azabagić, and Kuang-Hao Huang, coupled with Levin’s own ties to the area, this album was a no-brainer to be a featured New Release on WFMT.  The two individual movements of title work Asas (for clarinet, violin, and piano) is likely to remain in circulation for the charm of the first movement “Bem-te-vi” with its catchy birdsong motif and the atmosphere of the second movement “Sabiá,” evoking morning in a Brazilian forest. The rhythmic energy of “Norte-Sul” from Linguas Fraternas (for viola and piano) is also appealing for repeated listening.”

Oliver Camacho, Music Director, WFMT Chicago

“Rami Levin’s music has always inspired me. This new album of her music, impeccably played by some of Chicago’s finest chamber musicians, takes the listener on a vivid journey across a wide landscape of emotions. Always graceful and elegant, her music taps into the traditions of great composers such as Poulenc and Stravinsky while seamlessly weaving together Brazilian and other international elements. Brava!”

Don Meyer, Professor of Music & Associate Dean, Lake Forest College 

“The inimitable composer Rami Levin makes quite an impression on this debut album, where an all star cast of players are in attendance for 7 rich chamber selections….The works here were penned over 22 years and represent Levin’s diverse, worldly and exciting chamber vision that we could never tire of. “

Tom Haugen, Take Effect

“Barbara Drapcho is a fine, expressive clarinettist possessed of a fine tone, Mathias Tacke and Kuang-Hao Huang are excellent colleagues
Huang is joined by soprano Alisa Jordheim in the Three Songs…The revelation is the soprano herself, Alisa Jordheim, who has a simply glorious voice, so firm of pitch, so pure of tone with not a touch of unnecessary vibrato.  There is wit here, too, including some Clementi-like exercise-like sparring between singer and piano…It is important to acknowledge that for all their lightness, these songs are carefully considered compositions…

The Quintet Attacca…This is some of the finest wind ensemble playing I have heard: the sound is blended yet not for a second anonymous, and the players seem completely inside Levin’s score.

There is actually more focus to the pizzicato opening in this new recording by Anthony Devroye and I find Huang more bluesy, with the result that the two strata are more clearly articulated (and therefore the friction between them keener). This is underlined by Acis’ focused recording…There are some lovely moments of planned disjunction here; Levin conveys exactly her aim perfectly.

Levin takes four English nursery rhymes and sets them with lightness but also, as with the second, “Apple Pie,” with some profundity. And if Alisa Jordheim’s faultless way with phrasing (I haven’t heard a legato as smooth as that since Jessye Norman) does not pull you in, I don’t know what will.
Although born in Brooklyn (in 1954), Levin has lived in Brazil, and indeed was resident there for the composition of five of these pieces. This is a most appealing disc, notable for the discovery of Alisa Jordheim as much as for Levin’s music.” *****

Colin Clarke, Fanfare