| "It was the playing of an unmistakable soloist, and one with the guts to sing sweetly even on the edge of a precipice." |
| San Francisco Classical Voice |
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| "In Tomkins’ hands, this movement’s simple melodic line was transformed into an aria of ethereal beauty, a lone cry in the wilderness that left the audience breathless." |
| San Francisco Classical Voice |
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| "Tomkins proved the baroque cello is worthy of delivering many shadings on Cello Suite No. 5, with all the florid French inspiration Bach wrote into the suite. On the prelude, Tomkins played with heartfelt expression." |
| The Sacramento Bee |
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| "Cellist Tanya Tomkins contributed an especially eloquent solo..." |
| San Francisco Chronicle |
| from a review of Handel's "Athalia" with Philharmonia Baroque |
| "Unforgettable was Tanya Tomkins' expressive and singing cello playing in Geminiani's Sonata opus 5, number 3. Exhilarating music!" |
| Klassik Heute |
| "...an exquisite player." |
| The Baltimore Sun |
| “. . .the extraordinary cellist, Tanya Tomkins, whose playing [in Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato]. . .was close to miraculous.” |
| The Register-Guard (Eugene) |
| “. . .a cellist with a very special and unusual intensity.” |
| NRC Handelsblad (The Netherlands) |
| “Tomkins explored J. S. Bach’s Cello suite No. 1 with a probing, ruminating, often rhapsodic approach. . . .In Britten’s Cello Suite No. 1, she generated a large enough tone to suggest the presence of Mstislav Rostropovich for whom the piece was written, displaying a good feeling for the piece’s fluctuations of tension, and fearlessly confronted and conquered the technical traps.” |
| Los Angeles Times |
| “Of course, gut strings and light soundboards are not enough in themselves to make for an exciting and moving performance of Beethoven or anyone else. One also needs imaginative musicians — musicians who not only understand Beethoven’s music, but who know how to intensify its values on the particular instruments being employed. Fortunately, both Zivian and Tomkins turned out to be musicians of this sort — and then some! . . .[Tomkins’s] technical command of the instrument was impressive, without calling attention to itself: the focus, for both player and listener, was on the music, which Tomkins expounded with lucid intelligence, powerful feeling, and lively rhythmic drive.” |
| San Diego Reader |
| “Tomkins offered as compelling solo work on period instruments as you are likely to hear. The result was spontaneous and heartfelt music making which seemed to leave the audience exalted.” |
| San Francisco Classical Voice |
| “. . .cellist Tomkins knocked more than a few audience members right out of the ring with her superlative performance of Geminiani’s Cello Sonata in C major, Op. 5. No. 3. . . .A performer who combines an intense dramatic fire with Apollonian poise, Tomkins showed how exciting Baroque music can be when it’s treated as a living thing. There is an international career of great renown awaiting this young woman if she wants it.” |
| The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) |
| “Music played with the greatest possible perfection and power of expression.” |
| Westfalische Nachrichten (Münster, Germany) |
| “Cellist Tanya Tomkins is undoubtedly one of the Bay Area’s most gifted young Baroque performers. . . .She presented a taxing solo program with . . . [Bach cello suites No. 1 in G and No. 4 in E-flat], a suite by Benjamin Britten and a short composition by Eric Zivian. She performed with interpretive and emotional subtlety that brought new clarity to the three works of the standard repertoire. There was an immediacy to the music rarely achieved even in live performance.” |
| San Francisco Classical Voice |
| “The solo passages, delivered with verve by cellist Tanya Tomkins, made particularly thrilling fare.” |
| San Francisco Chronicle |