Works for Bassoon and Orchestra

�The instrument is precisely focused and the fineness of her playing shows her to be a musician of cultivated taste and sensibility...Geoghegan arrests attention immediately.� --Gramophone Magazine, November 2010

�Geoghegan delivers phenomenal brilliance and precision at top speed...And in the quiet moments, like the slow movement of Mozart's concerto, Geoghegan's lyrical playing has beautiful grace and musicianship. Responding in style, Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic contribute alert and attractive accompaniments.� --Classic FM Magazine, December 2010 *****

�It's quite rare for bassoonists to have the opportunity to perform and record their repertoire, particularly one so young, but Geoghegan is amply repaying the faith Chandos obviously has in her. This disc continues the fairy-tale outcome for Geoghegan and her Cinderella instrument of the orchestra and is worth exploring, particularly for the rarer repertoire.� --International Record Review, December 2010

Gramophone Magazine Editor's Choice - November 2010

Rossini: Arias

"A natural comedienne, she combines a vivacious stage presence with graceful, finished phrasing and an apparently effortless coloratura technique . . ." Gramophone, June 2013

"She tosses off Rossini's elaborate writing with the greatest of ease. This is an impressive Rossini recital." --Classicalcdreview.com, July 2013

"Dazzling . . . Kurzak combines a warm and richly colored low register with tireless, technically precise fireworks . . . the theatrical fearlessness of her delivery and the fluidity of her phrasing throughout make this an enjoyable and deeply impressive offering." --San Francisco Chronicle, August 2013

A natural comedienne, she combines a vivacious stage presence with graceful, finished phrasing and an apparently effortless coloratura technique . . . [she is] triumphantly celebrating her erotic power in the Act 2 "Rond� e finale" from "Matilde di Shabran" . . . Without ever over-egging the pudding, Kurzak acts vividly for a "blind" audience, alive to verbal nuance and using coloratura not merely as a vote-catching circus trick, but to enhance character. Lustily abetted by the Sinfonia Varsovia, she is especially good at generating a crescendo of delirious, dizzying glee that is such a hallmark of Rossini's comic art. But this is not all about frolicsome virtuosity and bright-pinging top Ds and Es. Kurzak can find warmer, deeper . . . colourings within her silvery soprano . . . [a] tenderly sculpted performance of Amenaide's prayer in "Tancredi" . . . she rails with passionate ferocity as the banished wife in the rarely aired "Sigismondo" and catches the mingled dreaminess and excited anticipation of Semiramide's "Bel raggio lusinghier" . . . elegance of style and expressive delicacy (she always cares for the text) . . . Kurzak brilliantly caps her recital with Fiorilla's Act 2 scena from "Il turco in Italia", beginning in intense pathos and ending in coruscating bravura . . . This regularly brought the house down at Covent Garden, and on this evidence it's easy to hear why. --Record Review / Richard Wigmore, Gramophone (London) / 01. June 2013