The Japanese Kinki Music Critics Club offered for the year 2003 “The Music Critics Club Award” to the Sakai City Opera Company and the conductor Arild Remmereit for their brilliant production of Puccini´s “Il Trittico”. They also received the Osaka prefectures award of performing arts.

REVIEWS

Hallé Orchestra, Manchester March 2009
Lyn Fletcher violin
Stéphane Rancourt oboe
Graham Salvage bassoon
Nicholas Trygstad cello

Schubert: Symphony No.5
Haydn: Sinfonia Concertante
Franck: Symphony in D minor

Sheffield Telegraph
Arild Remmereit proved to be an impressive conductor, one who lets music speak for itself while given it regular tweaks using a variety of unconventional gestures to get what he wants, many of them reminiscent of Leonard Bernstein, like the swaying hips in Schubert’s Fifth Symphony.
He is comparatively young (forties as a guess) but has a wily musical, longhaired head at the top of his tall build. Witness the sheer musicianly results he got in the Schubert, not making a meal of the andante but letting it flow naturally like the rest of the song-like work, with marvellous clarity and detail.

Ditto, the much-rarely heard Haydn Sinfonia Concertante, an easy-going, delightful piece and ideal for letting an orchestra’s violin, cello, oboe and bassoon principals to show off their talents, here, the Hallé’s much-gifted players.

Every section of the orchestra played superbly throughout for Remmereit who constructed a mighty edifice of grandeur and nobility, free of banality, out of Franck’s D minor symphony.

Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra April 2009
Stephan Jackiw violin

Glinka: Russlan and Ludmilla Overture
Mozart: Violin Concerto No.4
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No.2

her Rochester.com
-- it was from the opening sweep of the violins in the Overture to Russlan and Ludmilla by Glinka an engaging, alive performance. The music breathed, hummed and sang. Even a light showpiece, as Glinka’s overture is, had authority, absorbing the audience from the get go. The applause brought the conductor out for two rounds of bows.

Remmereit stands tall and commanding over the orchestra. His baton doesn’t beat rhythm or give cues. Rather, it communicates gestures. Musicians don’t follow his baton – they listen to it. The RPO tonight was the most responsive I’ve seen or heard it in recent concerts.

--- Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony proved to be the blockbuster of the night, eliciting hoots and howls from the audience after a breathtaking run to the end. Rachmaninoff’s melodies are so lovely that they rarely need much help from a conductor, but in the work’s third movement climax, Remmereit stood up and back, shivering with intensity as he asked the orchestra to pour out more sound. Throughout the entire work, Remmereit’s scrupulousness was a sight to watch, his hands fluttering, scooping and yelling with fierceness. The RPO’s response was even more affecting to hear.

Remmereit is Norwegian, an area mostly void of name-brand conductors, but he’s not from nowhere. He’s studied in Vienna and lists Leonard Bernstein as a major teacher. He’s made a name for himself as a substitute conductor with chops, which seems more like a lucky accident for the receiving orchestra than for him. He’s a top tier conductor, as proven by this performance – a level rarely seen in Rochester.
Remmereit’s tremendous performance with the RPO was fitting end to what’s been a season of exceptional performing from RPO. I hope they invite him back for future performances.

Democrat and Chronicle
For Thursday’s Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra concert, conductor Arild Remmereit drew remarkably polished performances from the RPO.

The Norwegian maestro began with Glinka’s familiar Overture to Russlan and Ludmilla. He caught its bustling high spirits: This could be theme music for the Energizer bunny.

---- Then it was the RPO’s turn to shine with a virtuosic account of Rachmaninoff’s richly orchestrated Symphony No.2.

Remmereit’s conducting was most successful in the galloping second movement, a troika ride where the horses are really feeling their oats. He loosened the reins for a bracing ride, including real drama in the bustling fugal section. Similarly, his tempos were snappy and free flowing in the finale.

Pacific Symphony Orchestra November 2008

Ingrid Fliter, piano

Groven: Ljalar-Ljod Overture (Joyful Shout)

Schumann: Piano Concerto

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.5

The Orange County Register

“World of change”

 Pacific Symphony’s Guests Stand Out

To a veteran concert-goer, the program, juxtaposing Schumann’s Piano Concerto and Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony as it did, may have seemed overly safe and familiar. But it turned out that both guests had something fresh to say about these works. A listener traversed old ground with new appreciation.

Norwegian Arild Remmereit, a busy guest conductor these days, was making his first appearance in California. He would appear to have an ideal temperament for Tchaikovsky. That is, he was able to view the emotionally wrought “Fifth” with a certain amount of objectivity and, rather than push and prod it to death, allow it to bloom and bang of its own accord.

Remmereit has a modest podium manner. His basic motions are small and precise and often delicate. He nudges phrases, coaxes musicians. At the same time, this smallness of motions gives him a wide and varied expressive range. He could pull out the big guns when he needed to, get all hot and bothered when necessary. But, more than most, he trusted Tchaikovsky to do it. His reading of the “Fifth” was both wonderfully detailed and lyrically elegant. He paid specially tension to the woodwinds, not just the group, but as individuals. Never in a hurry, he let singing phrases breathe; the dramatic pacing ebbed and flowed naturally in lively conversation.

   

         

 

Utah Symphony Orchestra November  2008

Natalie Clein, cello

Brahms: Symphony No.3

Elgar: Cello Concerto

Ginastera: Estancia – Four Dances

 

The Salt Lake Tribune

A new way from Norway

---the steadily climbing energy level sent the audience out of the doors exhilarated.

Brahms’ Symphony No.3 opened the evening. Remmereit’s reading was lovingly shaped and richly detailed, and the orchestra displayed a luscious, rich tone and a magically seamless interaction with the orchestra. The atmosphere was almost palpably charged in the slower movements, as Remmereit masterly managed the dramatic tension. The second movement marked Allegro molto, crackled with energy.

With the evenings closer, a suite from Alberto Ginastera’s ballet “Estancia”. Remmereit turned the orchestra loose in the Argentine dance music, resulting in a riot of bold, brassy color and rhythm.

 

Deseret News

Guest conductor refreshingly original, wonderfully musical

The Utah Symphony’s guest conductor this weekend, Arild Remmereit, is no mere tim beater. His conducting style is completely different from the conductors who have appeared in Abravanel Hall. His gestures on the podium are very free and frequently look like he’s trying to draw the sound out of the orchestra. It works, and he is a welcome change from the average.

Average is not the word one would use to describe Remmereit. He is a refreshingly original and wonderfully musical conductor - the kind that the Utah Symphony desperately needs.

The program with which Remmereit chose to make his debut with the Utah Symphony had the Brahms Third Symphony as the opening work. And this was the kind of Brahms interpretation that hasn’t been heard here some time.

Conducting without a score, Remmereit’s account of the “Third” was beautifully lyrical and expressive. His tempos were consistently on the slow side allowing for wonderfully fluid lines, broad phrasings and seamless playing.

Natalie Clein’s collaboration with Remmereit, with whom she has worked several times in the past, was sublim. They had the same approach to the work; they captured the dark brooding quality of the music with effusive lyricism. It was a musical pairing without equal.

The evening ended powerfully with the four dances from Ginestera’s early ballet, “Estancia”. Remmereit captured the raw, driving energy and the jagged rhythms of the three fast dances and the warm sensuality of the slow “Wheat Dance”.

RTÈ National Symphony Orchestra October 2008
Natalie Clein, Cello
Sibelius: Karelia Suite
Elgar: Cello Concerto
Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra

NCH, Dublin

At the opening of Sibelius’s Karelia Suite Remmereit’s concern with detail was extreme, every rustle and shift of string tremolo clearly delineated. But it quickly became clear he wasn’t going to get bogged down in the abstractions of point–making. His finely tuned responses functioned on the larger scale of things too. He got the big picture, he placed the important elements with accuracy, and he paid attention to the emotional impact of the whole. The effect in the early Sibelius was to convey the three movements of the suite with a real sense of substance, without in any way undermining the immediate tunefulness, which has made the music so popular.

Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra was also given with both big-boned conviction and considerable refinement, in spite of the fact that some of the heavier brass passages became too coarse. The playfulness of the second movement "Giuoco delle coppie" was well caught, the central "Elegia" reached moments of full-blooded expression, and the colourful mockery at the heart of "Intermezzo

Interrotto" was nicely judged.

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra September 2008
Jennifer Pike, violin

Sibelius: Tapiola Symphonic Poem

Mozart: Violin Concerto No 3

Dvorák: Symphony No 7

The Herald

BBC SSO, St Mary's, Haddington
Sibelius's Tapiola, the last, starkest, most cogent and radical of his tone poems, is heard surprisingly rarely for a work of such greatness. As prelude to the BBC SSO's Lamp of Lothian concert on Wednesday, grimly unfurled by Arild Remmereit, it made its impact anew. The forlorn, repeated phrases of the opening, the flurries of the flute tone, the jabbing horns, the climactic storm and its aftermath all registered keenly in the resonant surroundings of St. Mary's, Haddington. As the whirlwind evoked by the strings blew its way through Sibelius's Finnish forest, the darkness of the church behind the brass players supplied its own powerful atmosphere.

Dvorák's D minor Symphony was both vigorous and arresting. The first movement flared up from its depths with ample heat. The Tristanesque undertones of the slow movement registered poignantly. Remmereit conducted with great energy throughout, employing his vividly vertical beat to draw from the players a performance that had no trouble confirming the work as Dvorák's masterpiece.

Detroit Symphony Orchestra September 2008
Robert deMaine, cello
Groven: Hjalar-Ljod Overture (Joyful Shout)
Schuman: Cello Concerto
Franck: Symphony in D minor

The Detroit News

In guest hands, DSO flashes brightest colors
With Norwegian conductor Arild Remmereit at the helm, DSO offered a voluptuous and burnished account of Franckís Symphony in D minor.

In the Schuman Concerto, Remmereit proved to be an attentive and adaptable accompanist, keeping the DSO attuned in both phrasing and temperament to the flights of their soloist.

Remmereitís indulgent, yet sharply focused and perceptive reading showed in grand ways and small why Franckís symphony continues to connect in the computer age.

This is soul music in the fullest sense, honest and embracing and inspiring. Thatís how Remmereitís interpretation felt, and it absolutely took wing in a DSO performance that shone on every side.

Detroit Free Press

There's a truism in the orchestra business that the day you hire a music director is the day you start looking for the next one.

That brings us to Arild Remmereit, who led the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in a revelatory account of César Franck's shopworn D Minor Symphony on Saturday. Remmereit had the DSO operating at peak form. He is just the kind of substantive young guest conductor you want hanging around Orchestra Hall.

This weekendís concert marked his third appearance in the last 18 months ñ an investment strategy thatís already paying dividends in the form of a growing rapport between the orchestra and conductor.

A kinetic podium presence with a large and sometimes eccentric library of gestures, Remmereit transformed Franckís sometimes awkward blend of romantic expression and classical rigor into a thrilling potboiler. Seamless shifts in tempo and dynamics created a crucible of tension and release that inflamed Franckís sentimental melodies with weight and passion. The orchestra sounded meticulously prepared. But the performance also pulsated with spontaneity and focused playing, form the unified swell of the strings to the many well-integrated solo spots from every corner ñ harp, flute, English horn, clarinet, French horn.

Remmereit called up the curtain-raiser, Eivind Grovenís "Hjalar-Ljod" ("Joyful Shout"), from his homeland. He had the orchestra playing with the same intensity as in a Mahler symphony. Suddenly, what might have been a throwaway opening instead announced a true sense of occasion.

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra March 2008

Alison Balsom, trumpet

John Corigliano: Fantasia on an Ostinato

Haydn: Trumpet Concerto

Dvorák: Symphony No.7

Journal Sentinel music critic

Arild Remmereit is modest on the podium. His baton technique is elegant, clear and timely. Without much apparent effort, he got excellent results from the orchestra.

He and the orchestra were light and responsive behind Balsom and more than equal to the daunting challenge of Corigliano’s “Fantasia on an Ostinato”. It is all about gesture, and Remmereit and the MSO delivered them with fearless conviction.

The biggest work on this program was Dvoràk’s Symphony No.7. The performance was very good. Remmereit and the MSO got the pendulous surge in the phrasing of the agitated opening theme, which set the tragic-heroic tone for the whole piece. Conductor and players followed through for a convincing re-reading of the familiar Romantic arc, in which the storm-tossed hero suffers and struggles on the way to a blazing, redemptive finale.

National Arts Centre Orchestra February 2008
Natasha Paremski, piano
Tchaikovsky: Waltz and Polonaise from Eugene Onegin
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No.1
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.3

Ottawa Citizen

Under the baton of the gifted young conductor, Arild Remmereit, the Polonaise and Waltz from Eugene Onegin was effectful and bang on. The renditions were lovely, balances were excellent.
Speaking of bang, the next offering was the Piano Concert no.1 in B-flat. It featured the 20-year-old-Russian-American pianist Natasha Paremski in a virtuosic and admirable nuanced performance, where she with Remmereit gave a relatively lean, but excellent performance.
The final offering was the Symphony no.3. It is a fun and sometimes lively peace; fun in the finale and especially lovely in the second and third movements. The score's riot of colours could be dazzling at times.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra February 2008
Ingrid Flitter, piano
Hanson: Pan and the Priest Symphonic Poem
Chopin: Piano Concert No.2
Schumann: Symphony No.1

The Dallas Morning News

DSO, guests Remmereit, Flitter all in impeccable,
compelling Form.

If all concerts were as superb as the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's Thursday evening, there'd be no need for critics.
The DSO has been having a really good season. Guest conductor Arild Remmereit certainly had the orchestra playing in top form this time.
In Chopin Mr. Remmereit and the DSO were with the soloist all the way, similarly pliant with phrases and pivotal moments. Every department of the orchestra sounded beautifully buffed, and the stringsí decrescendo at the end of slow moments was breathtaking.
The concert opened with a spruce account of Howard Hanson's Pan and the Priest, a symphonic poem from early in the American composer's career, well wrought and appealing.
Completing the program was a suave, loving performance of Schumann's Spring Symphony. It was also a refreshing interpretation, with inner voices brought out to telling effect. Again, every section of the orchestra played wonderfully.

Madison Symphony Orchestra January 2008
Jennifer Frautschi violin
Grieg: Peer Gynt Suite
Glazunov: Violin Concerto
Dvoràk: Symphony No.7

The Capital Times

Remmereit displayed his unusual skill and dexterity during the Grieg suites, which opened the two-hour evening, and Dvorák's symphony, which closed it. The seamlessness with which MSO performed is testimony both for the youthful conductor and orchestraís well-seasoned musicians.
Remmereit delivers with an assured hand, one that points, flutters and holds its index finger to his lips, signally the onset of a quieter moment. During the third moment of Dvoràk's the conductor swept his arm broadly on a downward slope, to which the musicians responded not only by softening their sound, but also smoothing the texture. The guest conductor enabled the music to touch the audience deeply.

Wisconsin State Journal

Where to begin with such a wonderful musical experience?
The Madison Symphony Orchestra, led by guest conductor Arild Remmereit, aced three fine musical works Friday night in Overture Hall.
The audience enthusiastically applauded the performances, especially after the finale of the Dvoràk's 7. Symphony, when Remmereit exhorted approval by strolling across the stage as he singled out soloists, then each section of the orchestra in turn.

Remmereit has presence and was prepared.
That was especially evident in Grieg. He drew a strong romantic and transparent sound from the orchestra, with extended lush sounds and full justice to Grieg's excellent orchestration.
It worked marvellously.

The Daily Page

Madison Symphony Orchestra: Passionate intensity. A dream performance at Overture Hall.
Remmereitís work commanded the concert. He opened with Grieg's Peer Gynt. Obviously this Norwegian-born conductor has such music in his blood, and he led a sensitive performance, ranging from delicacy to bold volume. Using a graceful, somewhat idiosyncratic visual style of conducting, he indicated both dynamic inflections and individual cues with equal efficiency.
Then the Dvoràk 7th symphony.
Remmereit gave this magnificent work a thrilling performance, the kind one dreams of hearing at concerts but so rarely gets.
The MSO responded with a passionate intensity I have rarely heard from them. A performance that will long live in my memory.

Nashville Symphony Orchestra January 2008
Garrick Ohlsson, Piano
Adams: Lollapalooza
Schumann: Piano Concerto
Dvoràk: Symphony No.7

The Tennessean

. . . . The most remarkable moments in the Nashville Symphony’s performance were the small details: the delicate, quiet, transparent moments that Remmereit created with the orchestra.

In the second movement, conductor and orchestra matched Ohlsson’s delicate pianissimo textures and clarity, and they fully matched his energy in the driving final movement.

This energy and delicacy were also evident in Dvoràk’s Symphony No.7 in D minor, where the orchestration moves from the full, grand and organ-like to tiny exposed ensembles. It was the orchestra’s attention to the small, quiet details that made the work come off so well. This was evident from the quiet focus of the cellos in the opening theme, through to the seamless passing of a theme from first violins to seconds to violas and back. With a piece, and an orchestra, that can be given over to big, lush, sentimental gestures, Remmereit drew a taut, moving performance.

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra USA November 2007
Madeline Adkins, violin
Berwald: Tragic Overture
Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto
Schumann: Symphony No1

The Sun
Arild Remmereit, achieving especially rewarding results in Schumann’s Symphony No1.
The Norwegian-born Remmereit knows how to generate momentum and textural clarity, qualities ideal for approaching Schumann. But he doesn’t stint lyricism, allowing poetic thoughts room to blossom.
The result was an invigorating, eventful approach to Schumann’s First. There was a good deal of suspense in the slow introduction to the opening movement, an almost palpable burst of sunlight afterward.
Warmly sculpted phrases revealed the second movement’s wistfulness, while exceptional propulsion gave the scherzo an unusual kick. The finale can seem a little anticlimactic, but Remmereit avoided any letdown with his fleet tempo and an attention to little details of dynamics and colouring. The conductor managed to make the whole score seem fresher, more inspired than ever.

Royal Scottish National Orchestra, UK October 2007
Natalie Clein, cello
Pärt: Festina Lente
Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No.1
Sibelius: Symphony No.2

The Scotsman
An animated and proactive Remmereit presided over a dynamic reading of Sibelius’s Symphony No2, the highlight of the concert.
With a reinforced string section, more able to counter the heavyweight brass and fine woodwind detail, the orchestral sound was more balanced, allowing Remmereit to build up to a spectacular climax.

RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Ireland October 2007
Miriam Murphy, soprano
Beethoven: Symphony No.4
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde. Prelude & Liebestod
Strauss: Tod und Verklärung

Irish Times
Here,(in Wagner) as in Strauss’s tone poem Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration), Norwegian conductor Arild Remmereit handled the solemn subject matter with weighty but precise control. The more variegated Strauss afforded him opportunities to show a wider emotional spectrum, which he did.
The concert opened with Beethoven’s Symphony No 4. Under Remmereit’s direction the wind voices were always quite clear and his account was lively and colourful.

Detroit Symphony Orchestra, USA August 2007

Mussorgsky : Night on Bald Mountain
Prokofiev : Selections from Romeo and Juliet
Grieg: Selections from Peer Gynt

Detroit Free Press
Energetic conductor leads an emotionally hyper DSO

Leading a Northern Lights program Remmereit proved a kinetic presence.
He shaped the music with a compelling blend of detailed preparation and free-wheeling spontaneity and drew passionate if occasionally hyper playing from the orchestra.

He is an intensely physical conductor, waltzing around the podium with a large and eccentric library of gestures. He swept his arms in wide and tight butter-churn circles. He bounced his left hand up and down in a bunny hop. He jabbed at the orchestra like a boxer. At one point I think he gave the cellos the hit-and-run sign. Yet, nothing seemed self-aggrandizing. His beat was clear when the orchestra needed it to be, and the expressive performances spoke for themselves.

Remmereit was at his most lyrical and relaxed in the music of his homeland, Grieg’s “Peer Gynt”, picking and choosing movements from the two standard suites to make his own well-paced arrangement and finding an ideal balance of exotic local color, country dance rhythms and a persistent undercoat of wistful nostalgia. The strings wept emotionally at the death of Peer’s mother, dawn broke with a warm breeze of woodwinds and the Mountain King worked himself into frenzy.

Remmereit isn’t on the DSO docket for 2007-08, but let’s hope the orchestra doesn’t lose sight of him. He’s the real deal.

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, USA  March 2007

Orli Shaham, piano

Stravinsky: ”Four Norwegian Moods”

Grieg: Piano Concerto

Schumann: Symphony No.4

 

Asbury Park Press

Remmereit shows innate timing, deep knowledge at Basie show.

His energy and dance-inspired instincts were partly genuine interpretive leadership and partly showmanship, succeeding quite well at both. Musically, Remmereit understands Schumann as few interpreters do, and at this concert presented the composer at his absolute best. In particular, the transitions between movements were extremely effective and he was able to shine new light on the odd syncopated passages in the third movement. These movements showed the conductor1s innate musical timing and deep knowledge of the complete ensemble at every best.

Nashville Symphony Orchestra, USA March 2007
Peter Serkin, piano
Brahms: Piano Concerto No.2
Ned Rorem: Fantasy and Polka
Schumann: Symphony No.4

The Tennessean
Arild Remmereit is a dynamic, physical conductor who uses every part of his body to call forth music. He is the sort of conductor who not only seems to have an organic and immediate connection with the orchestra, but also the shape of whose conducting actually helps you hear the music better.
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In the Schumann Symphony No.4, when he cued the first violins in the fourth movement and then seemed to throw the theme to the woodwinds, the movement of the music through the orchestra became manifest. As a passage was picked up first by the cellos, then the violas, then the second violins, then the firsts, he rotated toward each and seemed to be pulled toward the music as it was bodied forth by the orchestra. He and the orchestra didn’t just make the music, they lived it together.

---Remmereit paid careful attention to Serkin’s subtle, thoughtful tempo and articulation changes and the orchestra made Brahm’s great symphonic concerto taut and transparent.

Ned Rorem’s Polka would have been worth a grin and Remmereit’s almost dance-like conducting showed that the orchestra can have a marvelous touch. Next to the more exploratory and serious Fantasy, between the two 19th. Century giants, though, it was like a slightly inappropriate but very funny and well-executed joke.