A revelation in brass…a gorgeous hushed melody, rapt as a lullaby, evolved into a heroic register….the music had a clear direction, and pointed towards the infinite…profoundly satisfying.
– DMV Classical, Review of the world premiere, 31 May 2026
Read More“Lyrical beauty and drama…” – OREGON ARTSWATCH
“A lot of fluidity, with beautiful solos for each member of the quartet...” – SEQUENZA21
“A beautiful study in textures that displays well-contrasted lyricism and affirming song-like qualities while not neglecting formal and timbral exploration…it is an excellently-written piece which, within very rigorous formal parameters, grants the performers a great deal of freedom…” - SCHERZO (SPAIN)
“Clean and pure” - THE STRAD
“Agócs has a penchant for lyricism; she writes a tune one may find oneself humming at the end of a performance” – LA SCENA MUSICALE
“Lyrical and multihued…an improvisatory tune weaves through the parts before breaking off in surprising directions. When you least expect it, the lines band together in sonorous chants, jaunty rhythmic exchanges, and glassy chords.”
– SAN FRANCISCO CLASSICAL VOICE
“The emotional scope broadened as the work progressed. The energy at times rose very high, almost with the proclamatory force and rhythmic insistence of Carl Orff. In my favorite section Expecta Dominium/Ecce Venit in Nubibus (Wait for the Lord/Look, He is Coming with the Clouds), Terry Everson’s trumpet solo and Corrine Byrne’s soprano aria consoled us through an almost Puccini-like richness of orchestration and melodic invention. Throughout, the words came through clearly and seemed to matter.”
– THE BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER
Read MoreA spirited piece employing Latin text… Kati Agócs’s propulsive Arise, Be Enlightened!, adapted from the Book of Isaiah, steadily gathers momentum until its final ecstatic climax. - THE WHOLE NOTE
Read More“For once, singing of complete and utter clarity…a simmering new cantata, conceived with transparency as a first principle…entirely, word for word, lucid. - THE NEW YORK TIMES
“A seven-movement chamber cantata for mezzo-soprano and ensemble..…sophisticated and eclectic…the settings were neither overtly dramatic nor emotionally overdrawn… gripping instrumental solos…despite the tragic nature of the topic, Agócs was able to find ways of including moments of hope, redemption and even renewal of faith.” - OPERA NEWS
Read More“Written for guest artist James Sommerville, who showed his own versatility…the 18-minute piece had plenty of variety and what she [the composer] called “dreamlike” textures…satisfying for all involved.” - THE SIOUX CITY JOURNAL
Read More“A pensive meditation that fades away on a high pitch.” - SAN FRANCISCO CLASSICAL REVIEW
“A light, vibrant piece that [becomes] more interior…before finding a sense of release” - FANFARE MAGAZINE,
Read More“A vibrantly colorful and hyper-emotional work” - SPARROW LIVE
Read More"Understated sonic beauty….Kati Agócs's Hymn was a haunting work that resonated with me. It explored the contrast between the independent instrumental parts within the timbral unity of the ensemble. It was one piece that could have been longer. A rare quality in new music." -HURD AUDIO BLOGSPOT.COM
“A gorgeous Hymn that begins with the warmth of ‘Das Rheingold’…incorporates both the vocal and intervallic strengths of the saxophone”- THE BIG CITY (NEW YORK), FOUR BROTHERS BLOG
Read More”Soulful violin…throbbing percussion…piquant melodies and propulsive rhythms create a whirlwind, Gypsy-like dance, its exultant final flourish ending the concerto” - THE WHOLE NOTE
“Inspired by Lou Harrison’s midcentury concertos for violin and percussion, Kati Agócs surrounded violinist Jennifer Koh with pairs of mallet instruments — vibes, xylophones, marimbas and glockenspiel — and only made drums prominent in the finale….Agócs spun fluid and sometimes florid turns for Koh over ear-friendly harmonies and rhythms.” - THE ASPEN TIMES
“Modern, lyrical, and fugue-like in its interplay between the four players, Imprimatur challenges both the players and the audience with a hybrid of old and new… a roller coaster of sound, emotion and technique.” - SMILE POLITELY (CHAMPAIGN-URBANA’S CULTURE MAGAZINE)
“A philosophical/ religious discussion in the old style, paired with fresh modernity….as a throbbing prayer, the movement scaled heightened rhythmic suspense to its conclusion…” - THE BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER
“Some of the most attractive contemporary music I have recently heard” - CHAMPAIGN, ILLINOIS NEWS-GAZETTE
Read More“Lyrical and melodic” - THE WORCHESTER TELEGRAM
Read More“Elegant, stately, lyrical, intensely romantic—all such words apply to this captivating thirteen-minute setting.” - TEXTURA
“A substantial, through-composed effort…employs elements of ground bass but also thrives on poignantly chromatic melodic writing. Throughout, Agócs’s ear for dramatic contrasts comes out strongly.” - ARTSFUSE
“The highlight of this recording of new music for the piano trio [The Claremont Trio’s CD Queen of Hearts] opens with a simple chaconne consisting of three-note phrases, the pattern of which is fleshed out and blooms attractively. Eventually it accelerates into runs and rivulets of sound before subsiding into gentler three-note phrases before ending grandly on a final chord.” - SAN FRANCISCO CLASSICAL REVIEW
"Agócs’s Queen of Hearts beguilingly wove a chaconne (that constantly changed) against a melodic line. The rhapsodic and very emotional one-movement work was played with intensity by the Claremont Trio. The piece offered a lot of dynamic contrast and ended on high notes triumphantly." - AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE
"Draws one in and gratifies with its clear communication….The Claremonts matched the intensity and lyricism in the score; plainly, they are making this music their own..." - BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER
"If the 20th-century classical world was about carving up the last of the dissonance and starting radical new schools of composition, the 21st-century classical world seems to be all about synthesis and syncretism, taking up the messy mantle of competing traditions and making something new and personal and beautiful out of it. Kati Agócs fits right in there: her polystylism has been making waves all over the world for the last decade or so…. It would be easy enough to pigeonhole Agócs as yet another post-modern more-is-more composer, but what I hear is an artist with ravenous taste and the skills to match...Agócs blends the history of piano trio writing with her own distinctive voice." - OREGON ARTSWATCH
Read More“The world premiere of Hyacinth Curl was exceptionally transporting. The voices swooned in the sinuous but sparse lines of a Sufi devotional poem, overlapping and swelling into rapturous harmony before joining at last in unison. Occasional arresting peals from the singers’ handbells provided the only accompaniment.” - THE BOSTON GLOBE
“The text is sublime; the unusual instrumentation complemented its air of mystery perfectly.” - THE BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER
“They opened with a stunner, Hyacinth Curl…Agócs put the lyrics together from Sufi devotional poetry by early 19th century Iranian noblewoman and mystic Bibi Hayati. As with claims that the Song of Solomon expresses religious devotion, you could have fooled me. [The] sinuous lines wrapped around each other, aptly expressing the lyrics’ barely concealed eroticism, with only an occasional handbell for punctuation. At the most charged moments, the women’s duet trailed off into silence, and after almost unbearable anticipation, the next stroke of the handbell was perfectly placed (that is, pitched) for maximum (aural) pleasure.” - OREGON ARTSWATCH
“Two voices, soprano and mezzo-soprano sing a text that Agócs derived from a Farsi ghazal (a sonnet-like poem), punctuated here and there by handbells played by the vocalists themselves. With only two voices the piece cannot engage in the dense layering that characterizes Agócs textures elsewhere. Instead we hear a constant intertwining of melodies recognizable as Agócs’s singing lines that are rich and occasionally angular. Subtle expression thus comes to a heated text that describes a “night of Power”, filled with “Beauty’s divan” and “ambrosial perfume” and “a chalice of the red wine of dawn-tide,” ending with the poet turning to worship the face of his beloved as the bells ring over and over. [The voices] blended beautifully, achieving a restrained but effective aesthetic seduction.”- THE BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER
Read More"Here the musicians begin the work with toneless scraping that gradually coalesces into musical form. Troubled, searching conversations take shape among the four instruments. At times, they are jagged and confrontational, at others blossoming into the kind of unashamedly soaring, tonal melodies that would not be out of place in the Mozart or Mendelssohn quartets on the program. They conclude in euphonious concord. It was as if the very string-quartet structure that Gubaidulina had dismantled in her piece were being reconstituted here and given a sense of hope by Agócs.” THE WASHINGTON POST
“While there is a central theme and melodic idea that pushes the music forward, the accompanying styles and interpretations range from classical simplicity to dense and complex counterpoint to scratch tones and texture. Most of this melody is based upon a single note turn, and Agócs explores a dizzy array of emotions and compositional approaches to that singular idea.” - LUDWIG VAN TORONTO
"Kati Agócs’s music has been described as encouraging audience members to listen and be changed. In Tantric Variations, she bases her musical explorations on the word tantric, which means woven together. Using a one-bar motive as the basis, she weaves “a landscape that really goes everywhere you could imagine,” [cellist] Rachel Desoer said. Starting with a word referring to the practice of weaving, Agócs is able to both reference the traditional craft as well as evoke the universal idea of weaving strands together to create a unified whole." - THE WHOLENOTE
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