Biography and images:
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“… Roberts’ beautifully expressive tone … offering countless felicities of phrasing … powerful and projecting…” The Strad Magazine
“… an abundance of colour and variety, Roberts’ playing is brilliantly demonstrative and engaging … a keen understanding of emotional content…” AllMusic
“Roberts… playing of spell-binding atmosphere…” BBC Music Magazine
“… a stunning recording…” Presto Classical
“vivid performance” The Guardian
Outstanding performances
Classical Source, David Truslove
“…the afternoon song-recital given by mezzo Rebecca Afonwy-Jones who, along with Rachel Roberts (viola) and Timothy End (piano) gave outstanding performances of works by Nielsen, Falla (Siete canciones populares españolas), Brahms (his Opus 91) and Edward Gregson’s superbly written Five Songs of Innocence and Experience…”
Warm sonorities and elegiac yearning from the viola soloist Rachel Roberts
Birmingham Post, David Hart **** Review
“…composer-in-residence Edward Gregson’s ‘Goddess’, [played] with warm sonorities and elegiac yearning from the viola soloist Rachel Roberts, sensual lyricism throughout, and a beautifully conceived ending where the music evaporated in shadowy threads of melody, harmonics and tremolo shivers.”
A seductively lyrical work by Edward Gregson, featuring the rich sonorities of violist Rachel Roberts
Hereford Times, Emma Lilley
“And then there was Goddess, a seductively lyrical work by this year’s composer-in-residence, Edward Gregson, featuring the rich sonorities of violist Rachel Roberts.”
Fabulously played by the solo violist Rachel Roberts
The Times, Rebecca Franks
“there was another stand-out moment………the ecstatic Goddess (2009), by the composer-in-residence Edward Gregson. It was fabulously played by the solo violist Rachel Roberts, the Presteigne Festival Orchestra and Vass.”
Published 30 Aug 2017
The authenticity of the febrile and rich sound they created, together with their intensity of emotion, made this most memorable
The Guardian, Rian Evans
“Violinist Gould and Frith combined fire and expressive power in Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata, and its pairing with Janáček’s Kreutzer Sonata string quartet, based on Tolstoy’s short story of the same name, was inspired. David Adams, Gould, Rachel Roberts and Alice Neary may not formally be a quartet, but the authenticity of the febrile and rich sound they created, together with their intensity of emotion, made this most memorable.”