MODERN MUSIC REVIEWS
John Adams: The Wound Dresser
"Thomas Meglioranza sang impressively."
—The New York Times
"Meglioranza was sweet and sympathetic in voice and manner."
—The Boston Globe
"Thomas Meglioranza projected a strong and determined baritone voice that effectively brought forth the words of the poet."
—Paris Transatlantic Magazine
Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King
"The fine baritone Thomas Meglioranza fully inhabited this daunting role, in which the king must both convey hints of his former dignity while prowling the stage and screeching in falsetto about God and kingdom and cabbages."
—The Boston Globe
"Davies’ 1969 tour de force lends the lead role to a necessarily game, flexible baritone. This performance had one in Thomas Meglioranza. His virtuosic part, teetering between primal sounds, Modernist gestures and Baroque swipes, ranges from abstraction to lamentation to personal implosion and requires him to steal and then smash a violin (belonging to the gamely befuddled Bing Wang). Meglioranza embedded a fine madness."
—The Los Angeles Times
"Maybe the most remarkable individual achievement belonged to Thomas Meglioranza, who bellowed, shrieked, wailed, and recited his way through Peter Maxwell Davies’ seminal Eight Songs for a Mad King. . . [His] account of it was also spiked with pathos: when, at the end of the fourth movement, Meglioranza (as George) offered “I am weary of this feint. I am alone,” the affect was heartbreaking more than anything else. . . What Meglioranza’s full-throated performance did best was to humanize this, on these shores, much-maligned monarch. After all, behind the caricature and myth lived a disturbed, broken human being, and to be able to bring him to life as potently and compassionately as Meglioranza did is a significant artistic accomplishment."
—The Arts Fuse
”The evening’s clear standout was Peter Maxwell Davies’ “Eight Songs for a Mad King.” Taking the instrumental configuration of Schoenberg’s “Pierrot” as a starting point, this work is a theatrical tour de force, both musically compelling and dramatically devastating. Baritone Thomas Meglioranza bent, coaxed and contorted his voice into the most versatile of instruments as he impersonated a demented King George III.”
—Ivory Dreams
Maybe the most remarkable individual achievement belonged to Thomas Meglioranza, who bellowed, shrieked, wailed, and recited his way through Peter Maxwell Davies’ seminal Eight Songs for a Mad King. . . [His] account of it was also spiked with pathos: when, at the end of the fourth movement, Meglioranza (as George) offered “I am weary of this feint. I am alone,” the affect was heartbreaking more than anything else. . . What Meglioranza’s full-throated performance did best was to humanize this, on these shores, much-maligned monarch. After all, behind the caricature and myth lived a disturbed, broken human being, and to be able to bring him to life as potently and compassionately as Meglioranza did is a significant artistic accomplishment.
—Silverlake Blvd.
"This was very much a concert presentation, but it had all the requisite comedy and thrills of something more elaborate, primarily because of the stunning performance of baritone Thomas Meglioranza. Everyone in the audience lept to their feet after he finished, myself included. Much deserved!"
—Frank’s Wild Lunch
Milton Babbitt’s Two Sonnets
"Mr. Babbitt's world demands esoteric performing skills. Conservatory solfege was, I suspect, of little use to the baritone Thomas Meglioranza's stunning negotiation of Two Sonnets. One's jaw dropped..."
—Bernard Holland, The New York Times
"As sung by the robust baritone, Thomas Meglioranza, the animated and rigorous vocal part sounded almost conversational."
—Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times
"baritone Thomas Meglioranza, whose rich voice gratefully found the lyric impetuousness within the Two Sonnets."
—Sequenza 21
"His 1955 Two Sonnets was given an unusually coherent and warm performance by baritone Thomas Meglioranza, with cellist Fred Sherry, violist Michael Ouzounian and clarinettist Anthony McGill accompanying. The key, it seems, is to understand the way Babbitt chops up syllables and words, broadcasting them up and down the scale with the dependable rhythm of a lawn sprinkler, as a bumpy kind of legato. At least this is what Meglioranza did, and it worked quite well."
—The Star Ledger
"The baritone Thomas Meglioranza, singing with hale voice and crisp diction, gives a compelling account of The Feast of Love...also strong in Five Songs from William Blake."
—The New York Times
"Meglioranza's light, clear voice is ideal for the mildly erotic The Feast of Love, and the simple and affecting Five Songs from William Blake."
—BBC Music Magazine
"Meglioranza’s most unusual songs were a series of unaccompanied Holderlin settings by the contemporary Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag. The singer managed to make his delivery of its complex details, unaided by a score, seem a spontaneous revelation of his innermost personal thoughts."
—Sydney Morning Herald
"baritone Thomas Meglioranza sang with characteristic warmth and eloquence."
--The New York Times
"Thomas Meglioranza, with his excellent diction and innate sense of drama, gave the song as much shape as he could. He did even better when, joined by the superb violist Misha Amory, he essayed Lee Hyla's Quarry, perhaps the finest song."
—New York Newsday
”It is amazing that this is only the second complete performance [of Stephen Jaffe’s Pedal Point] and that it still awaits recording! The vocal part is very demanding, requiring solid vocal control of BOTH extremes of the singer's range. Rising young baritone Thomas Meglioranza met these in spades besides producing a fine, warm tone and very clear diction.”
—Classical Voice of North Carolina