In just ten years, the Milwaukee Choral Artists has already received extraordinary critical review, including the following:
"Milwaukee Choral Artists closed its 10th anniversary season Saturday evening with a "People's Choice" program.
The ensemble surveyed its audience some months ago, asking for favorite pieces from the group's rich repertoire. The resulting concert, at St. Matthew's Lutheran Church, was an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink evening of music.
Director Sharon Hansen and the singers opened with sacred selections of faiths. They gave Copland's "At the River" an angelic performance and brought polished, beautifully shaped phrases and exceptional ensemble singing to Sister Cherubim Schaefer's "Laudate Dominum."
With Ben Steinberg's "Meditation - Oseh Shalom," the singers created a creamy unison sound that unfolded into wonderfully warm harmonies. They gave a sweetly earnest take on Robert Harris' "This Little Light of Mine."
The ensemble singers handle the styles and languages of these pieces with complete ease. Hansen's hands move in a controlled, expressive ballet to which the singers respond with tremendous nuance and musical expression and the sort of clarity and precision that finds them in perfect unison on sibilants and consonants.
- Elaine Schmidt Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 13, 2008
"Sharon Hansen's 18 women could sing soup recipes to major scales and mmm-mmm good. . . No wonder Hansen had composers lining up to write music for her group's 10th anniversary concert. Saturday's program, at Elmbrook Church, comprised 10 premieres. That remarkable fact testifies to the superior musicianship of these singers. . . The singers elevated all of this music because they tuned every chord exquisitely and understood the role of their particular note in the mix. This unrelenting awareness of the whole fabric sets the Choral Artists apart and makes the simplest chord progression vivid. Hansen, of course, has a lot to do with this, in rehearsal and on the podium. She seems to have a finger on each note at any given moment."
- Tom Strini, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Feb. 17, 2008
TOP FIVE EVENTS OF 2007-2008
"Overall, 2007-2008 was a very good classical season, with many memorable highlights. . . Olivier Messiaen's Three Small Liturgies of the Divine Presence was profound as performed by Milwaukee Choral Artists and Present Music. . ."
- Rick Walters, Shepherd Express, Wednesday, June 25,2008
#1 PERFORMING ARTS EVENT IN 2007
"Milwaukeeans never tire of saying that the quantity and quality of our performing arts outshine those of cities twice our size. We keep saying that because it's true. This year's top 10 list for classical music and dance could have been a top 20.
#1. Present Music Thanksgiving program, Nov. 18, Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. Artistic director Kevin Stalheim has taken Milwaukee on an extraordinary, decades-long musical adventure, and not only through the vast range and number of new compositions he's commissioned. Stalheim has also reached out for fruitful collaborations with other groups around town.
On Nov. 18, the most significant of many collaborators were conductor Sharon Hansen and her Milwaukee Choral Artists. They joined . . . the Present Music ensemble and various guest artists in a rare and exquisite performance of Messiaen's "Trois petites liturgies de la présence divine." Hansen, also director of choirs at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is one of the finest conductors I know. She had complete command of this difficult score and great feeling for its profound beauty."
- Tom Strini, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 24, 2007
"Sharon Hansen conducted "Three Liturgies," which featured her women's choir, the Milwaukee Choral Artists. Hansen held complete control over a large, well-prepared and highly focused ensemble. They sang and played with an awareness of pitch that turned Messiaen's exotic, chiming harmonies to blazing gold. . . Hansen and her singers and players fully realized Messiaen's colors and impulses, in a performance so disciplined that it was completely free."
- Tom Strini, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, November 18, 2007
#1 PERFORMING ARTS EVENT IN 2005
"Breakthrough musical group of the year: Sharon Hansen's Milwaukee Choral Artists, a small choir of women, has always been good. But their Liederabend concert (Oct. 14, Woman's Club of Wisconsin) was a revelation. The pitch, the blend and the balance made harmonies gorgeous, and their legato style and dramatic phrasing made the art song deeply expressive. The choir sang with all the unanimity, freedom and flex of a great solo recitalist. The Liederabend was no fluke. The Choral Artists sang Medieval monophony and organum superbly by way of backing up the Boston Camerata on a fine Early Music Now program (Basilica of St. Josaphat, Dec. 3)."
- Tom Strini, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 27, 2005
"Friday evening, Sharon Hansen and her Milwaukee Choral Artists did not sound like a chorus at all. They approached their "Liederabend" - their evening of German Romantic song - like a soloist approaching a recital, to spellbinding effect. . . I've never heard a chorus sound quite like this."
- Tom Strini, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 14, 2005
BEST MUSICAL PREMIERE OF 2005
"And they were just as great in modern music on Nov. 20, when they lit up the gorgeous, complex harmonies of Daron Hagen's "Flight Music" at Present Music's Thanksgiving concert at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. While we're on the subject, let's name Hagen's ravishing "Flight Music" the best musical premiere of 2005."
- Tom Strini, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 27, 2005
"Flight Music" premiered Sunday at Present Music's Thanksgiving concert. The group's resident string quartet played the inaugural, along with Sharon Hansen's Milwaukee Choral Artists. The 17 women of this superb choir fine-tuned Hagen's sky-high columns of sound. They set the overtones aglow and lighted up the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist with purely musical electricity. The women sang and Hansen conducted this difficult work with utter technical command and great sympathy for its ecstatic beauty, its meditative calm and its subtly propulsive rhythm."
- Tom Strini, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, November 20, 2005
"Hansen, with her gift for expressive detail, lovingly coaxed every bit of beauty from even the most mundane music. The 18 Milwaukee Choral Artists breathe and phrase as flexibly as a soloist. In the end, the program wasn't about female composers. It was about singing."
- Tom Strini, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 13, 2007
"Women's voices, refined yet fervent, sang of hope and trial Saturday evening. Who would not be moved? . . . Were it not for Hansen and her 18 highly trained and disciplined singers, we never would have heard the Largo from Dvorak's "New World" symphony sung in a cappella vocalize . . . To hear it revived so lovingly and expertly, as it was Saturday, was beyond inspiring. . . Their clear and specific timbres, uncanny pitch and ensemble, and palpable moral commitment made music from the fringes of the repertoire sound central to every human life."
- Tom Strini, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 15, 2006
"MCA musical director Sharon Hansen and her group of 16 women generously displayed their signature warm, unified timbre and effortless musicality. Listening to Lee Hoiby's Where the Music Comes From was as natural as resting near a country brook. David Brunner's O Music benefited from lovely choral phrasing and graceful accompaniment from cellist Paul Kilpatrick. Hansen conducted with the grace of a dancer, complete with expressive facial gestures and concise arm motions."
- Charles Grosz, The Shepherd Express, April 13, 2006
"The Milwaukee Choral Artists succeeded Saturday in every way. Their command showed the music in the best possible light. They threw the dance rhythms into sharp relief, and the legato lines flowed sweet and thick as melted chocolate. They articulated Spanish consonants with crackling clarity and formed vowels of ringing unanimity. Chords - even complicated, jazzy extended chords - bloomed in well-tuned, full-color glory. They drew the ear close to their intimate murmurs and bowled it over with blazing climaxes.
The concentration on the singers' faces, including those of the nine men who joined the women in the second half, was beautiful to behold. They were utterly intent upon their conductor and immediately responsive to her slightest signal, but furrowed no brows. Bright eyes and natural smiles ruled the evening. Most of this music is joyful, and it filled their faces and their voices with joy. They're superb singers and musicians, and they know it. Their preparation and confidence allowed them to enjoy the music and the act of making it, and that is the essence of a great concert.
They concentrate so upon their leader because Hansen conveys something specific about every detail in the score. Her gestures showed when to come in and when to sing louder or softer. They shaped the phrase, located the beat and so on, skillfully and efficiently. Beyond that, her face and body language said: I love this music right down to my spinal cord. Anyone who looked at her Saturday couldn't help but love the music, too, and that is the essence of great conducting."
- Tom Strini, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, February 12, 2006
"The Women of the Milwaukee Choral Artists gave voice to music . . .in a deeply moving, fascinating program . . . Hansen and the 15 women of the chorus . . .created nearly seamless unison sounds . . . They moved easily from pure, unison sounds . . .to a soaring forte . . ."
- Elaine Schmidt, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 17, 2004
". . .The all-female ensemble underscored the special place they have carved out in the local choral scene . . .stepping from era to era and genre to genre with finesse, polish, and musical integrity . . .enveloping the audience with elegantly sculpted phrases . . ."
- Elaine Schmidt, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 7, 2003
"Gorgeous blend, spot-on pitch, elegant phrasing and impeccable ensemble lifted everything Sharon Hansen's Milwaukee Choral artists sang . . .wow!"
- Tom Strini, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 7, 2002
". . . Wonderful repertoire and of course so musically interpreted and performed. Technique was just taken for granted. All I had to do was sit back, watch you uncover the unique spirit of each selection and absorb it into my spirit."
- Weston Noble, Luther College, Decorah, Iowa, February 2002
"Choral Artists holds audience spellbound . . .The ensemble was outstanding. The singers were attuned to every nuance in Hansen's expressive conducting . . . This is a good group, and the only one of its kind in these parts. Hansen is on to something."
- Tom Strini, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 22, 2000
". . .a beautiful and homogeneous tone, warm as aged cognac . . ."
- Charles Grosz, The Wisconsin Light, April 1, 2000
". . .One of the better groups in a choral-rich town."
- Rick Walters, The Shepherd Express Metro, October 25, 1999
