"While listening to Soprano Laura Strickling's latest album, Confessions, I was reminded of a phrase she has said countless times..., "Song Matters." Her new CD, available now from Yarlung Records, embodies this credo, that the combination of words and music is not a nicety or luxury, but rather an urgent human necessity. Both the music itself as well as Laura’s performances have an urgency that’s palpable. It’s at the same time a deeply personal and yet fully universal statement."
Michael Brofman
Confessions
"The first thing that hits you when you listen to the album is the clarity and translucent quality of Stricking’s voice. It washes over the listener, enveloping them in her daydream...Strickling and Schreier seamlessly transition from anxiety to excitement and back to anxiety. Strickling uses her solid command of vocal technique such as diminuendos, ornamentation, and appoggiaturas to drive the narrative arc...Her command of vocal technique is definitely a hallmark of the album which serves her well..."
Greg Moomjy
PRAISE FOR
"Strickling fulfills and FILLS this role, her voice as a siren-chameleon, changing shape and color and nature with total control as contexts switch and emotions bend ever so slightly from word to word."
Stephanie Boyd
American Record Guide
"This extraordinarily expressive and versatile singer has with courageous specificity chosen songs that brim with delineations of her life. Strickling performs with an intelligent combination of restraint and letting go. Her voice is full and lustrous and then bright and nimble as she weaves her way through the four cycles and two individual songs that she has selected. Each song is an individual story beautifully rendered. Collectively they make a strong statement about the status of contemporary art songs and her commitment to them."
John Hohmann
"Strickling’s shimmering voice offers an animation that blends and lifts these songs off the page into another world. These three aspects of composer, vocalist, and pianist create the type of special moment so often sought after in the world of song...The title of the piece, Confessions struck me while thinking about the album as a whole. At first, it appears that the ‘confession’ is one of guilt; be it eating cake and pie, or buying that luxury handbag. However, when you listen to the care of execution that the performers and composers brought to this work of art, it is clear that this is not a confession of guilt. It is a confession of faith. Faith that music and art are what will get us through this pandemic."
Tim Bostwick
Photography by Don Hebert
© 2023 by Laura Strickling