Devil’s Strum (2010)

"The concluding [guitar] recital of the weekend was played by master musician Jason Vieaux...Following intermission, Mr. Vieaux played the world premiere of Dan Visconti’s Devil’s Strum, a bluesy and literally foot-stomping piece written for the performer, which utilizes extended techniques and like its dedicatee is full of musical personality. Mr. Vieaux captivated the packed house with his dramatic performance of the new work."

—Cleveland Classical, Mike Telin (May 2011) full review

Americana (2010)

"Cellist Joshua Roman and pianist Andrius Zlabys made a winning duo at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron on Wednesday evening, November 16 in a program of Debussy, Piazzolla, Visconti and Brahms, the Clara I. Knight Young Artist Concert on the Tuesday Musical Association Series. The concert had strong regional connections: both of the artists as well as composer Dan Visconti are graduates of the Cleveland Institute of Music.

"[Visconti's] cello suite Americana was conceived during the composer's year in Berlin, a period that "made him acutely aware of being an American". Of its five movements (some of which feature pre-recorded material), Roman selected three which take their inspiration from such iconic, all-American tunes as 'Columbia, Gem of the Ocean' and 'Yankee Doodle.'

"Visconti has deconstructed the tunes to the point where they're sometimes only subliminally recognizable, but the three movements were kinetic, accessible and fun, featuring extended cello and piano techniques, wistfully beautiful cello melodies and dance forms as well as cadenzas for the cello that ranged from Bachian to craggy and syncopated."

—Cleveland Classical, Daniel Hathaway (November 2011) full review

"The focal point of cellist Joshua Roman’s recital was the world premiere of Dan Visconti’s Americana – a suite for cello and piano. Visconti told the audience the idea for Americana came after living abroad for a year. Living in Berlin, away from his home country, made him acutely aware of being American. On first listen, Visconti’s sound experiments and use of American source material reminded me of Charles Ives. But unlike Ives, who sometimes seemed to be experimenting for the sake of experimenting, striving to elicit discomfort in his audience, Americana is a cohesive tale that winds its way through the best aspects of our shared, American culture.

"Verses from American songs inspired each of the piece’s five movements. The hymn like first movement comes from "America the Beautiful." "This Land is Your Land" gave Visconti the idea for the percussive, rowdy second movement. Colliding dissonances played on the piano are meant to evoke the sea in the third movement, reminding us of "Columbia, Gem of the Ocean." Accelerating passages for the cello and piano in the fourth movement imply a march that derives its impulsion from "Yankee Doodle Dandy." For the final movement, "The Star Spangled Banner" catalyzed Visconti to imagine America’s adaptive spirit in music.

"Roman, helped by [Helen] Huang, reached across hundreds of years of music on Thursday. They played Britten with the same vigor as Brahms.

"But for those people who loved Roman because he offered something fresh, different, and adventurous he delivered a stunner with Americana. If he can continue to replicate Thursday night’s concert experience, we just might look back at this recital as a pivotal moment in Roman’s career."

-The Gathering Note, Zach Carstensen (June 2010) full review

"When cellist Joshua Roman first emerged on the local scene, audiences swooned over his boyish looks, marveled at his still developing technique, and went along with his haphazard programing ideas. These days Roman’s poise, curiosity, and refined velvety sound are what grip audiences. His partnership with friend and composer Dan Visconti is long standing and Americana was the first major piece he wrote for Roman. Visconti’s use of American ballads, songs, and effects are sure to keep it firmly in the cellist’s repertory."

—from The Gathering Note's critic's pick of the most memorable concerts of 2010

Low Country Haze (2009)

"Much credit is due the [UT Austin New Music Ensemble's] fine chamber musicians, all of whom performed with great artistry and confidence. In Dan Visconti's tone poem Low Country Haze, which opened with a raw, primordial sound that evolved to a Copland-inspired peak, each player excelled as both soloist and accompanist – with a special shout-out to clarinetist Yevgeniy Reznik and flutist Daniel Velasco, whose round, gorgeous sounds were particularly memorable."

—Austin Chronicle, Michael Kellerman (February 2011) full review

"The 18-piece orchestra was the star of Dan Visconti’s Low Country Haze, imagining the unfamiliar sounds of nature that 16th-century explorers must have heard in their trip through the American south. Had Debussy worked in the 21st century, he might have come up with some of the pizzicato and brushwork effects Visconti devised for the opening, that soon eased into an evocative tone poem that avoided the trap of slavishly reproducing obvious birdsong and the like."

—Metroland Weekly, B.A. Nilsson (March 2009) full review

"Dan Visconti's world premiere of Low Country Haze was about new sounds in new lands. He successfully evoked distant horizons and quiet seas with long smooth and lyrical lines and colorful spare harmonies."

—Schnectady Daily Gazette, Geraldine Freedman (March 2009)

Ballads and Broken Rhymes  (2008)

"Even though Ballads and Broken Rhymes may have a populist orientation, a riff on a gospel tune or something sweetly lyrical, any sense of quotation is short-lived. It is only a starting place for Visconti to make his own explorations, not only melodically and rhythmically but to experiment with the concept of a string quartet. The group's reading was lively, bridging the diversity of materials with deftness and security."

—Seattle Post-Intelligencer, R.M. Campbell (May 2008)

"[The Ballads and Broken Rhymes] were fun to hear with plenty of tuneful melodies in each, yet with sophisticated harmonies and rhythmic departures which lifted them out of the mundane to something with depth which will bear repeated listening...Jazz, blues, pop and soul all are interwoven with classical techniques, including at times slurs and swoops in both pitch and volume, sometimes haunting, sometimes bright. The whole has a light, clean construction and it shouldn’t meet the one-performance fate of so many new works. This one has staying power."

—Seattle Weekly, Phillippa Kiraly (May 2008)

The Breadth of Breaking Waves (2007)

"Composer Dan Visconti called on sacred and secular music of Anne Arundel County and sea chanteys of Chesapeake fishermen to create The Breadth of Breaking Waves. The work was affecting and uncluttered. A primitive, mystical quality colored and offset thundering crashes and glittering chime sounds."

—The Washington Post, Ronni Reich (November 2007)

Fractured Jams (2006)

“Dan Visconti’s smart, fun quartet Fractured Jams (which gave the concert its title) for clarinet (Michael J. Maccaferri), violin (Yvonne Lam), cello (Nicholas Photinos) and piano (Kaplan) also revolved, like a musician’s nightmare, around being unable to play. The first movement portrayed a kind of rock band sitting around the garage, too nervous to start rehearsing, and the rest of the movements had the same quality of intentional tentativeness, oddly sweet and endearing. At one point, Lam brilliantly mimicked the long, high drone of amplifier feedback; the final movement is a high-spirited rag that ended only when Kaplan slammed the keyboard lid shut.”

--Musical America, Zachary Woolfe (October 2011) full review

"Among the various motivations behind the festival SONiC: Sounds of a New Century, a nine-evening series of new-music concerts running throughout the city, one standout is the claim that all the included works are from composers 40 or younger. Eighth Blackbird, which played on Saturday evening in Columbia University’s Miller Theater in the festival’s second event, has never lacked for fresh pieces by emerging artists...Dan Visconti’s Fractured Jams elicited mimetic whimsy from Ms. Kaplan, Ms. Lam, Mr. Maccaferri and Mr. Photinos. Four brief movements fitfully evoked amateurish garage rock, a tipsy jug band, gritty feedback and dusty, crackly nostalgia."

—The New York Times, Steve Smith (October 2011) full review

"Classical music isn’t always that funny. In fact, one of the monikers frequently applied to this repertoire is “serious art” music. Laughing, needless to say, is strictly verboten, which is a shame, since one of the main elements uniting Saturday night’s concert by Eighth Blackbird at New York’s SONiC Festival was humor. Not just “smile a little” funny, but full-on laugh-out-loud funny. The festival is a celebration of 21st century music written by composers under age 40, a truly amazing feat in these economically challenged times. These young composers have clearly eschewed much of the baggage of 20th century contemporary music, because in their use of styles and syntax borrowed from classical, jazz, and pop, and their embracing of the absurd and silly, they actually want you to laugh.

"...Dan Visconti’s Fractured Jams was another moment of fun acting combined with virtuosic playing, as a quartet of clarinet, cello, violin, and piano became a garage band of teenagers, a drunken jug band jamboree, a feedback loop, and a kinetic, off-kilter 78rpm record from the 1930s. Visconti’s trick was to make these über-capable performers seem like inept amateurs, a characteristic they embraced with string screeching and clarinet squawking."

—Consequence of Sound, Jake Cohen (October 2011) full review

"[The audience] was equally appreciative of Fractured Jams, with murmurs of laughter at times. A work of fragments, with snorts and sniggers (clarinet), squeals and slides (strings), crashes, plonks and slaps (piano), it was brief, clever and fun."

—Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Philippa Kiraly (January 2008)

"The big message of Dan Visconti's Fractured Jams was that new music can have some wit. There are smart references to popular music forms, as well as riffs on ragtime and, of all things, farm animals."

—The Washington Post, Stephen Brooks (September 2007)

Love Bleeds Radiant (2006)

"In Love Bleeds Radiant, by Dan Visconti, a sentimental theme purred through recorded crackle and explosive outbursts to a peaceful resolution."

—The New York Times, Steve Smith (October 2010) full review

"Dan Visconti's Love Bleeds Radiant walked the line between music and noise, its choralelike fragments dissolving into slashing dissonance and distortion."

—The Oregonian (2006)

"The sound of a needle as it hits the vinyl—those familiar snaps, crackles, and the discordant, unexpected pops that resonate fluidity and jaggedness simultaneously. The syncopated scratchiness that plays accompanist to the guttural chords pulled from a throbbing blues guitar. Lyrics steeped in masculinity, yet with an undeniable undercurrent of fragility and vulnerability. That is the substance of composer Dan Visconti’s newest work, Love Bleeds Radiant, a piece commissioned for the Kronos Quartet that captures the strident contradictions blues music evokes....the work is a heartfelt tribute to the past that bumps flush, and sometimes violently, with the present."

—STRINGS Magazine, Tiffany Martini (June/July 2006)

Some Day the Sun Won’t Shine (2006)

"Vivid...[Some Day the Sun Won't Shine] provides a cheerful and colorful assault on the senses. The Symphony Singers, directed by Evan Wels, create crowd-scene yells and murmurs set against swooping instrumental glissandos."

—The New York Times, Bernard Holland (May 2007)

"And yet [conductor Paul Haas's] ability will take him far, as he proved by leading an auspicious world-premiere performance of Some Day the Sun Won’t Shine, a powerful, carefully calibrated rock-driven work by Dan Visconti."

—New York Observer, Lisa Medchill (May 2007)

Black Bend (2003 – String Quartet, 2005 - Orchestra)

"Dan Visconti’s Black Bend (2003), for string quintet, closed the concert with a quirky evocation of a jazz jam in which the viola, cello and bass create a rich fabric and a steady rhythmic bed against which the two violins (played with energy and spirit by Curtis Macomber and Miranda Cuckson) spin out dueling, bluesy solo lines."

—The New York Times, Allan Kozinn (August 2011) full review

"Antonio Stradivari's instruments have been venerated, played in concert and left in taxicabs by some of the world's greatest musicians. On Saturday night, 273 years to the day after Stradivari's death, some of them were put in the hands of a young group of string players for the Library of Congress's annual Stradivarius concert, a tradition that's continued since 1936, shortly after Gertrude Clarke Whittall presented the library with five Strads to call its own.

"Sybarite5, the young string quintet thus honored, represented another tradition as well. Like the Kronos Quartet, the pioneering granddaddy of contemporary chamber ensembles, and the many groups it inspired, Sybarite5 is a group that aims to play both contemporary and classical works with equal ability—their program juxtaposed Mozart with music by the indie band Radiohead.

"The bridge between the old and the rock, and thus, in a way, the meat of the program, was two works written by young composers for Sybarite5...Both fused different musical vernaculars in a melting-pot style that has become a lingua franca for composers under 40. D.C. resident Dan Visconti's Black Bend [was] atmospheric and predominantly bluesy. This is the art-music take on popular American styles, and it was counterbalanced by two Piazzolla tangos at the end of the program."

—The Washington Post, Anne Midgette (December 2010) full review

"With technique that approached impeccable, the five members of Sybarite5 showed off their love and mastery of a variety of 20th century music (and beyond), from Barber and Piazzolla to Led Zeppelin and Radiohead. The best moments, though, came in the new works crafted specifically for this type of group... the evening really took off with a piece written for the ensemble, Black Bend by Dan Visconti. It started modernistically, showing off violinist Sarah Whitney's ability to draw emotion out of squeaks and clawing sounds, then morphed into a blues shuffle underlying coruscating near-chaos punctuated with dabs of humor. This was one of a number of passages during the concert in which the quintet pulled from its strings the coming-from-everywhere sound of a larger group."

—Blogcritics.org, Jon Sobel (June 2010) full review

"Dan Visconti’s Black Bend is a fascinating exercise in ways to explore the far reaches of customary tonality, bringing forth country music inflections in a gripping series of scorching riffs before the sly joke of a false ending."

—Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Richard Storm (May 2010)

"Contemporary American composer Dan Visconti's Black Bend likewise borrowed, it appeared, from country music. Visconti took his material, disassembled it, turned it around and looked at it from all sides — just as Ravel did in La Valse."

—Allentown Morning Call, Philip A. Metzger (August 2009)

"Nakahara opened the concert with Dan Visconti's Black Bend. It's a musical train wreck, literally, an orchestral onomatopoeia that includes screeching brakes, collapsing bridge, falling timbers, calming insect sounds before and after a bluesy violin improvisatory figure."

—The State (October 2008)

"The program began with a wily sonic entertainment by a musician just 25. Like so many of his contemporaries, he scorns the border between classical and pop. His bluesy Black Bend, first heard here in December, is a savory stew of found sounds—insects, train whistles, the clickety-clack of steel on steel—seasoned with improvisatory elements and finished with attitude. Originally for string quartet, it sounded completely at home in its orchestral dress. The performance rocked."

—Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Larry Fuchsberg (2007)

"Dan Visconti also introduced his Black Bend, inspired by tales of a disastrous train wreck in Ohio. This was one of the evening's finest and most powerful pieces, distinguished by a slow build, like a train gaining steam, and a bluesy bass line."

—The Spokesman-Review, Jim Kershner (October 2007)

"[Black Bend] was fun and short, and didn't come larded with the pretensions of the other pieces."

—The Advocate Weekly, Stephen Dankner (2005)

"Visconti's writing was both mature and youthful, bristling with exhilarating musical ideas and a powerfully crafted lyricism. The performance rocked, and the piece [Black Bend] made a strong impact."

—Cleveland Plain Dealer, Wilma Salisbury (2003)

Storm Windows (2004)

"Dan Visconti’s orchestral piece Storm Windows takes its title from a poem by Howard Nemerov. As the orchestra plays, a narrator reads: “People are putting up storm windows now, / Or were, this morning, until the heavy rain / Drove them indoors…” The calming habits that seem to show humanity’s victory over forces of nature are halted, postponed, then destroyed altogether. Soon lawns are flattened, window glass shattered. But the storm’s destruction allows a new kind of communication to exist: “something of / A swaying clarity.”

"It is this new clarity that Visconti’s compositions attempt to bring forth, working from the rubble, detritus, and storm-wreck of more habitual and conventional forms of music. Visconti, this year’s Leonore Annenberg Fellow in Music Composition at the American Academy, spent years as a jazz and rock guitarist, and traces of these genres – as well as blues, gospel, and other forms – remain detectable.

"At 26, Visconti has already received numerous accolades for his work, including awards from BMI and ASCAP, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Society of Composers. In the past three years, he has had three major orchestral pieces commissioned: Overdrive for the Minnesota Orchestra, The Breadth of Breaking Waves by the Annapolis Symphony, and Low Country Haze by the Albany Symphony. The forcefulness and energy of his compositions are practically palpable: when describing his music, reviewers call it 'bristling,' 'dazzling,' and an 'assault on the senses.' The potency of Visconti’s compositions demonstrates again the power of music to communicate uniquely among the arts."

—Berlin Journal, Malte Mau (Fall 2008)

Hard-Knock Stomp (2000)

"In addition to the Shostakovich Sonata, [violist Melia Watras] also offered the audience three (essentially) “show pieces” by Kreisler, Visconti, and Wieniawski. All were played extremely well...worth noting was the young composer Dan Visconti's Hard-Knock Stomp. With its references to blues and folk music, and virtuosic playing by Watras, it was an enjoyable choice to begin the recital."

—Classical in Seattle, Zach Carstensen (October 2007)

Various Pieces

"Visconti's new scores are varied and skillful...Graffiti is the more modern of the two, a bold investigation of layered effects and colors woven into a clamorous and delicate narrative. His Storm Windows is somewhat more conventional in musical language but equally affecting in expressive impact. Set to a text by the late U.S. poet laureate, Howard Nemerov, the piece wraps warm string lines around the idyllic verses, until offstage chimes, bells and trombones evoke an aura of languid nostalgia."

—Cleveland Plain Dealer, Donald Rosenberg (November 2004)

American Individualism: Scharoun Ensemble at Radialsystem

“In the end, the Philharmonic's Scharoun Ensemble transformed itself into a glass harmonica: The musicians put their instruments aside and began to draw their fingers across the rims of tuned wine glasses. A soft blanket of sound ended Dan Visconti's Low Country Haze.

Previously, the ensemble under the direction of Michael Hasel basked in lush, impressionistic swelling sounds in a premiere [Drift of Rainbows] commissioned by the ensemble—Visconti knows how to bend the idioms of traditional music to such a degree that they sound refreshing rather than stale.

Stylistic obstacles are nowhere in sight of the 27-year-old Visconti, who is currently a fellow of the American Academy; for him the entire American tradition from Varèse to Cage is apparently colloquial. Each of the five pieces heard at Radialsystem this evening has a very different stylistic orientation. His Black Bend for string quintet, for example, is a masterful collage of blues elements executed with joy and wit, whereas his Fractured Jams locates itself at the unlikely intersection of improvised rock and dense avant-garde tone clusters. Remembrances for Cello and Piano is a melancholic cantilena close to the edge of kitsch, and yet Visconti always manages through asymmetric phrasing to imbue the music with such willfulness that one can enjoy the piece with a clear conscience.

On the European avant-garde festivals, Visconti’s music might have a tough time, because the diversity of styles and approaches has yet to yield a unified compositional language. At the same time, it’s difficult to imagine this causing him any loss of sleep.”

—Der Tagesspiegel (Berlin), Ulrich Pollmann (May 2009) full review

Genre-Bending Composer Creates Music for Open Minds:
(excerpted from Cleveland Arts Prize feature in the Plain Dealer)

"A lot of my work has been connected to Cleveland," says Dan Visconti. "It's the place where I progressed from student to young professional."

But the link to Cleveland runs much deeper. The city also has served as the setting for numerous life-altering experiences and offered inspiration both creative and financial for some of his most important compositions.

Alas, Cleveland cannot take credit for Visconti's twin musical passion, the blues, which he says are "really a part of me, flowing through my veins pretty strongly." That honor goes to Chicago, where Visconti grew up, and to Nashville, Tenn., where the composer has done occasional work as an arranger.

But Cleveland was indeed the place where Visconti had his first serious encounter with jazz, an art form that continues to affect his musical thinking and define him as a composer... playing jazz on a pickup basis, Visconti says he discovered casual performance to be rewarding. This, in turn, taught him that 21st-century composers like himself must "create a concert experience that is special again, something that's particular rather than generic."

Unlike many musicians of today, Visconti eschews computers and sophisticated technology in favor of paper, pencil, his two favorite instruments (violin and guitar) and a rinky-dink electric keyboard he describes as "so incredibly lacking in musicality...it somehow frees me up."

Paul Cox, chair of the Cleveland Arts Prize's music and dance jury, said he found Visconti's music bold and complex but also easy to decipher. "He focuses on the details, almost obsessively, weaving these really unique textures," Cox explained. "He gives you this vague feeling you're listening to jazz, but then transcends the genre with a climax that would be intense in any context."

At the moment, he's busy fulfilling no fewer than three significant commissions. Clevelanders should get their next chance to hear Visconti's music in October, when an ensemble plans to perform his Christmas in America, a work from 2007 for soprano and electric guitar Visconti describes as "an old Christmas novelty-song that seemingly goes off on some kind of acid-trip about halfway through."

Visconti says he plans to write all three this summer while on a guest-teaching stint at the Cleveland Institute of Music and next year during a term at the American Academy in Berlin.

In the meantime, Visconti remains on the quest for fresh ears. He says his ideal listener is anyone who's open-minded, whose tastes, like his, tend to be broad rather than narrow.

In other words, someone who can't be easily pigeonholed. "I can think of no greater accomplishment than if I could, through my music, lead someone towards something new and unfamiliar to them," Visconti explains. "If my music could serve as a bridge, that would be a real privilege."