Review excerpts
It is simply indisputable. Dr. Eric Kujawsky, music director of the Redwood Symphony, has a foot in the first rank of orchestral conductors. His American directness and lack of affectation frame a directing technique that should be put on film and used for teaching purposes. Furthermore, the range of his interpretive skills, from the pre-classical to modernism, seem to have no limits.
With eloquent pre-concert comments and excellent stage rapport with the audience, he batters away at that which separates those across the footlights from the music and musicians on stage and bonds all into a relationship that draws enthusiastic standing ovations at the conclusions of his concerts. -- Redwood City Tribune
This orchestra is the baby of its music director, Dr. Eric Kujawsky, who founded it in 1985 and has nursed its growth until it is arguably the most technically proficient of the non-professional orchestra in the Bay Area, and I believe it matches some of these.
And I don't even believe it is arguable that Kujawsky isn't one of the best conductors, with an admirable suppression of ego- driven artistic flourish and an economical beat and cueing that never unnecessarily crosses the parameters of need.
And the orchestra eschews that same glamorous affectation. No uncomfortable black ties, dress suits and formals for them. Good old black skirts and pants and black shirts and blouses will do to keep the audience riveted on to the most important thing, the great music itself.
And with Kujawsky, if you arrive one hour before the concert, you get a two-for-one, when he puts on his musicologist hat and lucidly explains to all what they are about to hear and even more.
What about this concert on Sept. 30?
One word: Powerful! -- San Mateo Daily Journal
Volunteer Orchestra Aces Stravinsky
In the 22 years since he founded the Redwood Symphony, music director Dr. Eric Kujawsky has become noted for bringing the difficult, challenging and/or rarely heard works to mid-Peninsula audiences and the Feb. 4 concert at the Notre Dame de Namur University Theatre in Belmont was no exception...
The orchestra that afternoon was tonally at its best, perhaps ever. With another display of its technical proficiency on this really tough stuff, it simply eclipsed any other symphonic group I have audited in this area. Particularly, the winds were super in every respect in both works.
I will not patronize by prefacing with, "For a community symphony orchestra...." when actually, this is probably the best stuff south of the San Francisco Symphony.
Scaling The Heights In San Mateo
"No guts, no glory," read the sign on my former boss's desk. It's a lesson that has clearly been taken to heart by Eric Kujawsky, music director of the Redwood Symphony...Throwing caution to the wind, the intrepid maestro gathered his forces on Sunday afternoon to scale one of the more difficult peaks in the standard orchestral repertoire, Gustav Mahler's monumental Symphony No. 8 (1906). Often called the Symphony of a Thousand, it requires a gigantic orchestra, two full mixed choruses, children's chorus, and as many as eight soloists…
Kujawsky led a well paced performance marked more by exuberance than majestic sweep...Kujawsky was in fine control of his forces, ably supporting his large team of soloists. -- San Francisco Classical Voice
The Stravinsky work was a genuine tour de force for Kujawsky and the orchestra. Kujawsky's clean, yet expressive podium technique elicited impressive results by maintaining a high level of excitement throughout the course of the work, with panoply of sonic treats along the way.
Kujawsky brought off his concert with jocular ease, annotating it with wit and brevity to break the ice. He is secure in his medium, establishing a rapport with his players and audience, unafraid to tackle tough pieces, all the the ready air of informality. -- Paul Hertelendy, artssf.com
…Kujawsky's probing musical intellect and his world-class conducting… -- San Mateo Times
Kujawsky doing Mahler is not a concert. It's an event. He doesn't only read from the musical notations, the dynamic markings and the instructions, he dissects the work analytically down to the bone. Then he stitches it back together again and directs it without any phony "maestro" shticks. His literate and perceptive pre-concert introductions to the program are works of art in themselves, not to be missed by serious music-goers. He rolls up his sleeves and without any pretentious, arty gestures, he dips his hands into that wonderful mix of musicians he has accumulated over the past 20 years and draws out a plum.
And this performance of (Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony) was a plum -- a big one. -- San Mateo Times
At the San Mateo Performing Arts Center last Sunday afternoon, music director Dr. Eric Kujawsky, his Redwood Symphony, supported by a superb Schola Cantorum chorus, pushed Beethoven's monumental "Symphony No. 9 in D minor," the "Chorale Symphony," pretty close to those outer limits.
This was the best version I have heard since Leonard Bernstein's outing with the Vienna Philharmonic, some twenty years ago. If you believe this is a singular opinion, you would need to have witnessed an audience of over one thousand leap to a standing ovation after the last notes, as if its seats had been wire-sprung.
When I first viewed this orchestra at the Canada College eighteen years ago, with an audience hardly larger than its membership, I had the feeling that this was the start of something big and I have been proven right. The director and orchestra have grown in stature each year, presenting remarkably adventurous and difficult old and new works, and now stand at the greatest heights ever. -- San Mateo Times
As a conductor, Kujawsky has grown into a dominating presence. With a simple, clear and strong baton technique, he exercises remarkable control over his performers. -- Redwood City Tribune
In fact, it (concert version of “The Mikado”) was the best musical event I have reviewed this year…. Eric Kujawsky re-confirmed my opinion that he is the premiere and most musically scholarly conductor of non-professional orchestras in the Bay Area, an orchestra he himself created 17 years ago. Not only does he dig in, without useless dramatic baton choreography, and extract the best from his dedicated volunteer musicians, but he steps in where other conductors rarely dare. -- San Mateo Times
Historically, there have been variations of modern conducting styles that range from the extreme minimalist technique of the late Fritz Reiner--a pencil length baton beating the tempo while eyebrow lifts and frowns controlled dynamics--to the manic style of Leonard Bernstein, who jumped two feet into the air at times conducting intense passages.
Happily, Kujawsky falls in the moderate center with an ambidextrous control of the orchestra: tempo with a smooth and clear right-handed baton and dynamic control with a remarkably expressive left hand.
Control is the keyword here. He seems to reach right into the orchestra to draw out the most extremes of loud and push back in for the clearest of softness. -- Redwood City Tribune
On Eric Kujawsky's Clarity recording of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring:
Hobbled for 40 years by a cultural climate that demanded that a performance illuminate the music's structure rather than its emotional content, the work has not been properly recorded since Muti and the Philadelphians' electrifying reading on EMI -- and even that was hampered by a mediocre recording with restricted dynamic range.
Now there's one that does Rite full justice. Don't be put off by the unfamiliar performers; what matters is how familiar they are with the music, and they know it inside out. This is a stunning Rite, and the recording will blow your socks off. -- Stereophile Magazine, in its 1997 listing of "Records to Die For."
There is no question that Redwood Symphony entered the rank of the handful of top Northern California orchestras with a stellar performance of the Third Symphony by Lutoslawski...
The job of the conductor involves different left hand and right hand cures and incredible presence of mind. I have not often seen a conductor who can give such precise cues as Dr. Kujawsky, and it is a wonderment why this man is not taking on the kind of great orchestra that the media and the big newspapers limit themselves to exclusively. -- Full Score
Kujawsky has an unbelievably coherent ensemble under his deft and sure control...This is an orchestra worthy of the name "symphony" and gave an accounting itself worthy of the best currently performing. -- Peninsula Times-Tribune
[Kujawsky's] strength as a music director is not just his high ambitions for himself and his orchestra, or his clear concept of the work he conducted, but his conducting itself...It was clean and concise. When he gave a cue, it was crystal clear. His style is energetic and enthusiastic without being excessive. -- San Mateo Times
Conductor Eric Kujawsky has a marvelous way of turning each Redwood Symphony concert into a music appreciation class. His often humorous way of explaining the intricacies of the music, giving background information on the composers and using the orchestra to demonstrate the various elements of the music his is discussing creates a warm feeling of intimacy between the folks in the audience and those on stage and greatly adds to the fun. -- Peninsula Times-Tribune