Wholenote Magazine
"Johnston has the rare ability to make a collective battery of percussion sing... Johnston's virtuosity delivered a celebration of the percussion family, but always as a part of an effective, perceptible musical structure."
Winnipeg Free Press
"...played with a subtlety that is not typical among percussionists."
New York Times
"Critically, the high point of the evening was the dazzling frequently virtuosic performance by percussionist Beverley Johnston."
Guelph Mercury
"...a whiz bang player with the soul of a poet... one of the most original and creative artists of our day."
Chronicle-Herald (Halifax)
"Rhythm and sweetness in a beautiful blend."
Faedrelandsvennen (Kristiansand, Norway)
"What a marimba player! And what a percussionist!"
The Toronto Star
"This beautifully recorded disc [Impact] makes a strong case for the expressive and technical abilities of Beverley Johnston."
EAR Magazine
"Dancing to the beat of her own drum...Johnston's like a panther on stage, moving from one instrument to the next in clean, fluid gestures so that every movement, including the ones that don't evoke the sounds, makes a difference."
NOW Magazine
"...one of the world's top contemporary percussionists..."
MACLEAN'S Magazine
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Centennial Concert Hall Winnipeg
Attendance: 1,216
Winnipeg Free Press
The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra literally got its feet wet Saturday night with Chinese composer Tan Dun's Water Concerto, for Water Percussion and Orchestra (1999), a unique work that takes the plunge into all things water.
The WSO premiere opened the season's final Masterworks "A" concert, Mahler 5, featuring Canadian percussion dynamo Beverley Johnston. Tan Dun is perhaps best known for his Academy winning film score, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), with this offering proving to be both theatrical spectacle and fascinating auditory experience.
This type of work is more typically heard during the WSO's annual New Music Festival than in the classically based, Euro-heavy series. The big surprise was that the delicate piece - as an unlikely foil for the coming storms of Mahler - actually worked, imbued with its own naturalistic sensibility and organic appeal that gently invited the listener into a watery world of Tan Dun's devising.
The Asian flavoured concerto calls for the soloist to perform a variety of amplified effects using two large water basins, bowed gongs and sundry percussion instruments dipped into the water, floating wooden drums beaten with mallets, and some graceful, freestyle hand splashing that evoked both a sense of ritualism and innocence.
Some effects, arguably, worked better than others. The 30-minute piece could have easily been whittled down to a more audience-friendly length. Some sections seemed to lag, with the swooping strings becoming too much of a good thing. But Johnston's artistry and conviction - particularly during her two wild improvised cadenzas - in addition to a truly beautiful ending where she lifts a sieve of water to create a cascading waterfall made it one of the more memorable pieces heard this year.
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Tongues of Fire is an eloquent and moving work, representing the conflict
of ego in the form of the soloist, and society (the orchestra). It rises to
terrifying levels of sound during the heat of the struggle and is musically,
utterly convincing in its complexity and noble in its ambition. Beverley
Johnston is Canada’s gift to the world of solo percussion, and Hatzis taxed her
musicianship and extraordinary technical mastery to the limit as she travelled
from the front, where her marimba, vibraphone and tuned gongs were positioned,
to the back of the orchestra where she could lay to with a will on gangs of toms
and a big bass drum. Behind her, percussion instruments were spread from wall to
wall, requiring six percussionists to handle all the assignments...12 French
horns gave considerable substance to the heroic sound of the outer two
movements...The concerto pitches the soloist against the orchestra in what
becomes a fevered duel for supremacy. The concert master, violinist Mark Fewer,
steps forward to champion the orchestra and he and the soloist start competing.
When she realizes he has more notes and tonal resources than she, she overwhelms
him with power. He concedes. But she too collapses briefly over her bass drum. A
Pyrrhic victory...The second movement is full of sweetness and repose, prefaced
by a pop song, Eternity’s Heartbeat, sung and recorded by Patricia
Rozario and played on Sunday’s concert as a prelude to the second movement. That
movement, sounding at times like the sound score to an epic movie, relieves, but
only temporarily, the opening shots of the battle between soloist and orchestra
in the brief but ferocious first movement. The final movement resolves the
conflict of a work characterized at times by multiphonics in the winds,
harmonics in the strings, and shouts and screams by the orchestra members
contributing to the urgency of this electrifyingly expressive work.
Stephen
Pedersen, THE CHRONICLE & HERALD (Halifax) June 12, 2007
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"Evolving Elements by Hong Kong
born composer Alice Ho was the audience favourite. Marimbist Beverley Johnston
joined the Penderecki [string quartet] to create a sonically colourful extended
ensemble"
The Record (Kitchener-Waterloo) May 2, 2005
"The third movement [of Pyrrichean Dances]
with Johnston as main soloist, led off with a hauntingly romantic theme played
on the musical saw against softly voiced triadic harmonies in the upper
strings..."
The Chronicle Herald (Halifax), April 14 2005.
"Johnston also includes Etude in C Major by Clair Musser and Two
Mexican Dances by Gordon Stout which are handled with grace and
virtuosity...Johnston's own Meditations showcase her skills as a
vibraphonist."
Percussive Notes, February 2005
"Other inhabitants of the bar included
the brilliant percussionist Beverley Johnston, doubling as a bartender who turns
her bottles into instruments."
Toronto Star, September 2004
"Johnston's "breakdown" done to a tap
dancing/drumming is inspired innovation, and she shows a sparkling personality
in her acting parts."
The Globe & Mail, September 15 2004
"Give Her Percussion was the title of GroundSwell's final concert of the season, and it was the most appropriate indeed as Canada's pre-eminent percussionist Beverley Johnston was the guide through an evening of composition by Canadian women composers."
Winnipeg Free Press, June 1 2003
"What could have been a disaster for the Cornwall Concert Series on Saturday evening turned out to be a pleasant experience of magical proportions. One finger changed the programme - which makes one realize how precious the hands of a musician are.
A distraught Sylvia Whitaker, Cornwall Concert Series organizer, explained to the audience how she felt upon finding out on Friday that one of the scheduled performers, flautist Susan Hoeppner, could not perform. She had broken a finger.
But in the music world, the show must go on, and Ms. Whitaker's woes quickly changed to jubilation, as the evening progressed.
Beverley Johnston, an outstanding percussionist in her own right, graciously accepted to do a revised solo programme.
The outcome was an evening of sheer delight and sound imagery"
Standard Freeholder April 14 2003
"Johnston's flashing hands darted over a large battery of percussion instruments as she alternately moved from one side of the stage to the other."
Winnipeg Free Press, February 20 2003
"I think I speak for the audience by saying we were entranced watching Johnston in action. The cadenza on the drums was particularly riveting.
Montreal-born Johnston's mastery of her craft was apparent as she glided through the performance. Shouts of "Bravo!" accompanied applause at its end, which came all too soon"
The Hamilton Spectator, February 17 2003
"She was superb! Her sense of rhythm is knife-edged, and the weight of her sound as magnetic as the northern lode that guides our shipping."
Chronicle-Herald, February 6 2002
"Johnston gave the crowd of about 50 children and their parents a crash course in the exotic instruments that percussionists have at their disposal.
She rang bells and gongs, she shook rattles, she produced chimes and pings and she beat out frenzied rhythms on drums. When she asked for volunteers to try their hands at maracas and marimba, the children practically stepped over each other to join her. A percussionist will get them every time."
Ottawa Citizen, July 25 2001
"After the interval we came to the Togni piece, scored for strings and percussion - and what percussion.
Spread across almost the entire stage was an intriguing array of instruments, and there to play them was Beverley Johnston, the acclaimed percussionist."
The Guelph Mercury, June 4 2001
"Then came Keiko Abe's The Memories of the Seashore, an evocation of the sea on marimba. No cruel, crashing waves here, but the gently heaving bosom of the mother of all life drawn with ravishing beauty by the incredibly skillful Johnston."
Hamilton Spectator, March 6 2000