Reviews from Germany

"Kimball Wheeler is everything but a typical recitalist. Her large, beautifully projecting Mezzo doesn't deny her theater experience as an interpreter of Wagner and Strauss; she doesn't artificially alter her instrument, but always sings with full vocal commitment. Although linguistic clarity is very important to her, it is not the central point of the performance. The voice always stands in the foreground: the radiant, expressive voice.

"Her timbre is pleasantly silky, and especially in the middle range, colorful and flexible. The high range is beautiful and brilliant.

"Of course, the program for the evening consisted of everything except sure-fire winners. Four extraordinarily interesting pieces by Henri Duparc were followed by the funny and refreshingly intelligent 'Histoires naturelles' by Maurice Ravel. Five songs by Charles Ives were performed with beauty and precision. A group of Brahms songs, sung with melancholic incantation, formed not a showy corsage, but a noble bouquet. And the world premiere of Songs without words by Dimitri Terzakis, for unaccompanied voice, provided an unparalleled challenge. It speaks for Kimball Wheeler that she had her strongest moments, vocally and interpretively, in these simultaneously new and stone-age sounding pieces. One could imagine them as laments in an ancient desert landscape. Her performance took us on a journey back to the origins of singing; indeed of music itself."

Recital, Düsseldorf Tonhalle
Rheinische Post, Dec. '95

"The 'Urlicht' ('primeval light') was interpreted with enormous depth of feeling by Kimball Wheeler, mezzo-soprano. Intoning with shadowy vocal colors, she took us out of this world."

Mahler Symphony #2, Düsseldorf Symphony
NRZ, Düsseldorf, June '95

"Kimball Wheeler, a true Verdi mezzo-soprano, convinced through the many faceted scope of her voice's expressiveness. A peak moment was the 'Lux Aeterna,' in which her singing painted landscapes of musical paradise."

Verdi Requiem, Jena Philharmonic
Kultur, Hameln, Nov. '95

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