... The piece de resistance was the final poem, “Recuerdo,” [Liam Wade, 4 Poems of Edna Millay for Soprano and String Quartet] with Moss at first accompanied only by the soulful Angela Choong on viola, then the other players entering stunningly in stages, later giving way to a lovely a cappella section for Moss, and finally springing a hilarious vocal count-off by violinist [Isaac] Allen. Wade’s luscious voicings brought to mind Kurt Weill and suggested that there’s no reason why good chamber music can’t also register as fine art song or splendid cabaret." ~ Jeff Kaliss, San Francisco Classical Voice, 4/11/10
"...his musical language is fairly well-formed...and a handsome, competent language it is. His quartet owed much, it seemed, to Shostakovich (not the hysterical, paranoid Shostakovich, but the classicist aspect of that composer), as well as popular music...This is not to suggest that Wade's music is all sunshine and puppy dogs; the second movement of his quartet was angry and dramatic, with a lyrical, mournful contrasting section, and the final movement was laden with slow, octatonic gloom (and what appeared to be a quote at the end—Schubert's D minor quartet)."
~ Christian Hertzog, San Diego Arts, 2/13/09
from a review of CMASH Winter Concert 2009:
"The second half began with Silver Apples (2008), four moon-related poems set by CMASH Executive Director Wade. The postmodernist style was extremely engaging and humorous, with a fine funereal melody in the opening number, "The Moon," by Robert Louis Stevenson, switching to ragtime in Edgar Allan Poe's "Eldorado." Here Moss really strutted her stuff with some very creative scat routines. Even the pianist chimed in with several ominous comments as the poem's Shade recommended boldly riding down the Valley of Shadow "if you seek for Eldorado." Marchlike then waltzlike sections of the third poem, William Butler Yeats' "The Cat and the Moon," were effectively conjured, appropriate for the words "When two close kindred meet,/What better than call a dance?" "
~ Jeff Dunn, San Francisco Classical Voice, 1/24/09
(Read Full Review)