‘The music of Boston-based composer Lee Hyla is a riveting, bejeweled enigma, one in which disorder and confusion crash into pristine, balanced beauty. A fascinating study in contrasts, Hyla’s scores pit blunt noise against placidity, and lushly scored masses vie with percussive, rocking grooves. Hyla’s is a wholly original voice, and at long last, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project has committed three of his major works to disc via New World, one of the few American labels still concerned with preserving an promoting contemporary music.’

‘The album ends with a bracing 25 minute Violin Concerto (2001), played by Laura Frautschi, for whom it was written. And just when you think you have acclimated to Mr. Hyla’s raucousness, the music takes time to ruminate, with lacy, pensive violin writing and tender orchestra harmonies that pay subtle homage to the haunting Violin Concerto of Alban Berg.’ – Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, 6/13/04

‘A flat-out masterpiece in the genre. There are exquisite moments here, often reminiscent of the Berg Violin concerto, but with a Stravinskian rhythmic energy cloaked in an abrupt musical syntax that is strongly recognizable as Hyla’s own. I can’t recommend it highly enough.’

‘Lee Hyla writes in a tremendously compressed style in which shape and gesture stand in for conventional melody despite an often clear tonal orientation. Rhythm also plays an important role in activating his musical textures and maintaining linear transparency, and it’s clear from a cursory listen to any of these three works that Hyla writes with a great deal of talent and confidence…….Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project rise bravely to the occasion, and no matter how disjointed the music becomes, they never make an ugly sound or lose sight of where the music is going- and make no mistake, Hyla both knows where he wants to go and how to get there. Excellently detailed, well-balanced sonics round out a most welcome portrait of a fascinating composer who could well become a major voice in contemporary music.’

‘What comes through most in Trans (1996), a three movement work of less than twenty minutes, is Mr. Hyla’s ability to find thematic threads and structural integrity in music that seems mercurial and volatile. His pungent harmonic language, containing tonal and atonal elements, eludes description. All you can say in the end is that he pieces his pitches according to what sounds right to his keen ears, not according to some system or notion. The counterpoint is ingenious: pumped-up polyphonic lines fight it out in high registers atop a protective mat of sustained, stable chords.’ – Anthony Tommasini, New York Times 6/13/04

‘The Bass Clarinet Concerto features the great bass clarinetist Tim Smith. It pushes Tim Smith’s bass clarinet all over, bravely swirling, sailing, floating on top of the slowly evolving, elegantly exciting orchestral terrain.’