PRESS
“This listener cannot imagine more persuasive performances than the ones Drury played…”
--The New York Times
“Drury’s performances were magisterial, and each note was a sounding point of light…”
--The Boston Globe
“The most scintillating, honest and pianistically impressive performance of Ravel’s demanding ‘Miroirs’ suite I have ever heard…”
--Boston Review
“Drury is a true original whose supremely disciplined fingers are at the service of a rigorous, questing, imaginative mind. It is unlikely that the season will hold a piano event more astonishing than Drury’s performance…”
--The Boston Globe
“Stunningly fresh and spontaneous…”
--Boston Herald
“Drury’s Ives remains a serious contender for the year’s most extraordinary keyboard achievement…”
--The Phoenix
“A sensitive, highly intelligent musician with fire in his soul…Pianism of tremendous intensity…”
--The Boston Globe
“Astonishing!...none of our important pianists is more exploratory and versatile. Drury’s magnificent performance left nothing to chance…”
--The Boston Globe
“[Last night] the increasingly stupendous Stephen Drury played Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G,…It’s not possible that anyone has played the solo part more flawlessly or with more beautiful tone. The harder the technical challenges, the more subtle the colorations Drury creates. You can hear each note, no matter how many of them are coming at you per second, yet the sense of continuity leaves you gasping.”
--Lloyd Schwartz, The Boston Phoenix
“Drury’s playing masterfully combines a virtuoso technique, intellectual thoughtfulness, and a commanding sense of the piano’s tone colors.”
--Travis Rivers, Spokane Spokesman-Review
“[Beethoven’s] C-minor ‘Pathetique’ Sonata is probably not one that immediately springs to mind when thinking of Drury, who is the least sentimental of performers. But the pianist opened the program with it and infused it with much fresh air. The introductory Grave was gorgeously contemplative, the succeeding Allegro full of diamond-edged brilliance. The great Adagio cantabile featured beautifully voiced harmonies and a rhythmic lilt that precluded any smoochiness. The finale…had a mercurial dazzle.”
--Ellen Pfeifer, Boston Globe
“Stephen Drury, that freest spirit among pianists, has recorded a CD no one else could have imagined…Drury is a superb pianist who enters fully not only into the different sound world of each piece but also into its personal space, its imaginative territory…There is no one like Stephen Drury, an individual in a conforming world whose work insists that music matters.”
--Richard Dyer, Boston Globe
“Mr. Drury’s playing is extraordinary. He plays the entire program with technical command, keen ear for color, vivid imagination and probing intelligence.”
--Anthony Tommasini, New York Times
“A tour-de-force reading of a contemporary classic brought a crowd to its feet at yesterday’s Piano and Friends recital by Stephen Drury.”
--Tucson Citizen
“I continue to marvel at Stephen Drury’s imagination, technique, and expressiveness. Drury plays [Cage’s music] sometimes reverently, sometimes mercurially, but always with grace and serenity.”
--Rob Haskins, American Record Guide