Tom Strini, Journal Sentinel
March 29, 2008

Balsom's power, lyricism highlight of MSO concert

"Alison Balsom's details of attack, release, dynamics and timbre polished Haydn's 13-minute Trumpet Concerto into an exquisite little gem at Friday's Milwaukee Symphony concert.

This concerto, written in 1796 as a demonstration piece for the short-lived keyed trumpet, has its moments of brilliant bugling. More often, though, it would show the new instrument capable of a refined sort of expression not generally associated with the trumpet, especially in those days. Balsom excelled at both facets of the concerto. She snapped off staccato 16ths with ease and signal calls with clarion purity and power. And she shaped and colored Haydn's gentle, lyrical lines with the grace and warmth of a really good Mozartean mezzo.

This concerto is not the heroic, Romantic stuff of standing ovations, but the performance so charmed the audience that it stood and clapped until Balsom delivered an encore. If you go to the performance at 8 tonight, do insist on more. Balsom's rendition of Debussy's dreamy, blue-noted "Syrinx," originally for flute, is intoxicating in its beauty."