Reviews
Celebrated by international critics for her effortless technique, rich palette of sound, and vibrant musical dialogue, Cléa Galhano brings early, contemporary, and Brazilian repertory to life with rare elegance. Below are selected review highlights spanning her performance and recording career.
A triumph of delicacy and suave embellishment in rare Baroque repertory... Her virtuosity was highly entertaining, but inevitably it was the profound substance of a JS Bach sonata that made one really open one’s ears.
— London Sunday Times
The very highlight of the evening was created by Cléa Galhano... she made great music with smooth sound, intricate ornamentation and with obvious joy of playing.
— Mittelbayerische
Regensburg, Germany
A masterful combination of soulfulness, colorfulness and playfulness that covers a wide palette of styles... Together, they create a very unique fabric of sound, transporting us to different places, times and spaces at once.
— Clarice Assad
American Recorder
Filling the hall with the haunting tone of the recorder, Galhano proved that sometimes simple beauty can be more moving than a 100-piece orchestra.
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Hearing a musician play in the 17th century fashion is invigorating and inspiring... To witness extreme virtuosity makes you feel free, powerful, and magnificent. This was certainly the experience of the audience when they witnessed recorder player Cléa Galhano overcoming every daunting obstacle in the fiendishly difficult d’Espagne by Marin Marais as though all those pyrotechnics were the easiest things in the world.
— San Diego Reader
There are not many professional recorder players who could sustain a full programme of music drawn from the early to the high Baroque periods, but the Brazilian-born Cléa Galhano is certainly one of them... brilliantly expressive... gifted player’s performances of genuine eloquence and virtuosity.
— Robert Matthew-Walker
Musical Opinion (London)
On May 13th, in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, a magnificent recorder concert entitled Brazilian Baroque was performed by Cléa Galhano, Rosana Lanzelotte and Peter Maund. Galhano’s playing is always full of energy and passion—a passion matched by the others. Indeed, at times, the music evolved into lively conversation.
— Beatriz H. Ramos Amaral
American Recorder
[Songs in the Ground] is one of the best-sounding recordings of recorder and harpsichord I have ever heard... the sound is vivid and true-to-life, capturing every nuanced articulation of the performance.
— American Recorder
(on Songs in the Ground)
Exceptional intonation and ensemble made the harmonized melodies glow and clarified the speedy, complicated counterpoint. [Marion] Verbruggen and [Cléa] Galhano are technical wizards, and this program gave them ample opportunity to demonstrate that. It also showed their sensitivity.
— Journal Sentinel
Milwaukee
The Blue Baroque Band models a lively, historically informed approach to playing music unabashedly on its various instruments... Galhano ornaments the lines with aplomb.
— American Recorder
(on The Blue Baroque Band)
Cléa Galhano, recorder, and Joan Griffith, guitar and cavaquinho, made it hard for audience members to keep from dancing or singing along.
— American Recorder
(on Brazilian Duets)
[Songs in the Ground] is really beautifully played... testimony to Galhano’s diverse approach to recorder playing and certainly demonstrates a high level of versatility.
— American Recorder
London
The recorder player, Cléa Galhano (known for her performances of Brazilian music) created the perfect blend of sound, with playing that was strikingly compatible.
— San Francisco Classical Voice
San Francisco
Virtuoso [Cléa Galhano] makes ancient instrument sound fresh.
— Pioneer Press
St. Paul, MN
Cléa Galhano shines with her recorder... The concert was brilliantly performed.
— O Globo
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil