PRESS
Podcasts
Blogs/Articles:
ASU News (July 7, 2021): ASU music professor wins grand prize in 'Impact Performance' competition
New Music Listening Club with New Morse Code
In the Club: New Music Listening Club with Michael Compitello
Musical U: Awareness, Innovation and Reflection, with Michael Compitello
Press
"Mike Compitello shined, showcasing the virtuosity of Akiho’s composition and swinging his whole body across the marimba as he played."
"[New Morse Code] are, it seems, not just playing for the future of music, but vibrantly living in and shaping it."
Praise for dwb (driving while black)
Albany, 2021
“New Morse Code, the remarkably inventive and resourceful duo of cellist Hannah Collins and percussionist Michael Compitello, chronicle reality with unblinking intensity.” - Gramophone
"Susan Kander: dwb (driving while black)." Classical Music (BBC Music Magazine), June 10, 2021
Margles, Pamela: Susan Kander: dwb (driving while black). The Whole Note, June 30, 2021
New York Observer, September 1, 2020: “Unmissable Ballet and Opera Streaming in Fall 2020.”
“Von den Gefahren, ein Schwarzer am Steuer zu Sein.” Pizzicato Journal, April 17, 2021.
Praise for Simplicity Itself
New Morse Code's Debut Record on New Focus Recordings
“an ebullient passage through pieces that each showcase the duo’s clarity of artistic vision and their near-perfect synchronicity" - icareifyoulisten.com
“a flag of genuineness raised" - Q2 Music
Featured on:
icareifyoulisten.com: Video Premiere | Review
Praise for Prayers Remain Forever
(STARKLAND, 2014/ AMAZON)
"Each of this disc's works...speak eloquently and powerfully...Highly recommended."
- Gramophone
“A superb collection of recent chamber works, beautifully played.”
- Sequenza21
“[A Message from the Emperor] though is an unqualified success. An essay on a Sisyphean mission given a messenger from a distant king (and equally impossible for the recipient), the setting of the text seems ideal as it develops into furious repetition, insistent, unyielding, and ultimately exasperated. “
WQXR’s album of the week, January 5, 2015:
“ fast-rising percussionists Michael Compitello and Ian Rosenbaum have played alongside the best.”
-Daniel Stephen Johnson
New Music Buff: “Maybe Music Remains Forever, A New Martin Bresnick Disc”, Nov. 10, 2014:
“A Message from the Emperor (2010) is another piece based on Kafka. This piece is scored for two speaking percussionists who play marimba, vibraphone and small tuned drums. This little narrative follows in the same basic tradition as the speaking pianist piece. The musicians speak sometimes separately, sometimes together coordinating their substantial duties on their instruments as well. The story tells of an important message that, as is characteristic in Kafka’s absurdist world, can never actually be communicated. It’s not clear if this (or, for that matter, the other tracks on this disc) is intended as political protest music but the analogies are certainly there if the listener chooses to apply them.
-Perkustooth
Modern Composition Reviews, January 2015:
“Percussionists Michael Compitello and Ian Rosenbaum take turns in reading lines from “A Message From the Emperor” while providing pulsing rhythms from a vibraphone and marimba, the ringing bell-like tones giving the piece a Chinese feeling appropriate to the story.”
-Josh Ronsen
New York Times:
“This exciting recording of chamber works and piano pieces, mostly inspired by literary texts, should be a revelation to those who don’t know his work.”
-Anthony Tommasini
The Big City: Best Classical Albums 2014:
“Bresnick has been indispensable as a teacher to the current generation of new composers, and his own music is sublime, with exquisite craft, an ear and heart for the beautiful, and a transparent, graceful and unselfconscious connection to the common musical materials all around us. This is a superb collection of recent chamber works, beautifully played.”
-George Grella
PRAISE FOR BASEMENT HADES, SONGS OF THE UNDERWORLD
"Stunningly Moving"
"Percussionist Michael Compitello is a stand-out of the evening"