Steven Sloane

Under the direction of Steven Sloane, the Latvian State Choir sang and Bochum Symphony Orchestra played with solemn serenity appropriate to the occasion, with a nearly ominous air, as though each individual groaned under the weight of such musical responsibility. Musically, it was less meditative than tremulous, piercing, reproachful.
Peter Jungblut, BR Klassik, 6 September 2019 (Ruhrtriennale, Ligeti Requiem)

The Latvian State Choir and Bochum Symphony Orchestra under Steven Sloane are startingly delicate in their approach to this music, which, in the surehandedness and musicality of their interpretation, also gets at something unyielding that touches the audience with an almost foreboding quality. A truly substantial evening.
Andreas Falentin, Die Deutsche Bühne,  6  September 2019 (Ruhrtriennale, Ligeti Requiem)

The opera and museum orchestra inevitably played an authoritative role once again in the inspiring experience of the (second) revival of this opera. Steven Sloane stood at the podium, with a good view on his former job as first conductor (nearly thirty years ago). With great oversight and passion, he led his orchestra through the demands of the dense task, making for delicate strings and dense, powerful brass.
Frankfurter Neue Presse, Matthias Gerhart, 29/5/2018 (Adriana Lecouvreur, Oper Frankfurt)

Mahler's eighty-minute final symphony is a work of haunting beauty. In Sloane´s sensitive and expressive interpretation as conductor, the marvel of timbres, polyphony, and symphonic structures was developed to perfection. And the canon of moods – drama and conflict, grief and tenderness – was kept in remarkable balance. […]Stunning! Given this bold performance, one nearly forgot that the exquisite graciousness with which the evening began.
Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Jürgen Boebers-Süßmann, 12/3/2018

The house orchestra, under guest conductor Steven Sloane, executes  the score’s broad palette of textures with impressive attention to nuance and balance, from gongs that crash in the outer aisles, to detuned, mocking flutes, to squealing brass. It may not always be a pleasant journey, but Reimann’s Medea offers the listener no escape.
Financial Times, Rebecca Schmid, 23/5/2017

Superb too, was the way conductor Steven Sloane co-ordinated with the soloists, making the seemingly incompatible compatible for two full hours, right from the very first notes.
Tagesspiegel, Frederik Hanssen, 23/5/2017

The real shock of Medea comes from Reimann’s orchestra. As in his Shakespeare opera Lear (…), all of the sound’s violence comes from the orchestral pit, which was released into the room with an incredible presence by Steven Sloane and the house orchestra – fierce, seething, wildly faltering string and brass figures, and raw and cracked percussion agglomerations. This was listening as a challenge and a dangerous exercise.
Süddeutsche Zeitung, Wolfgang Schreiber, 25/5/2017

Prégardien, Sloane and the Bochum Symphony are wonderfully matched. They bring a rare, dreamlike quality and sense of other-worldliness to Mahler‘s visions of love and war, life and death. Ghostly woodwind solos and distant trumpet calls make chamber music with Prégardien’s steady but supple lines of long breathed melody. Sloane’s conducting offers bracing support in its alertness to the underlying dance rhythms of so many of these setting.
BBC Music Magazine, Hilary Finch, 3/2014 “recording of the month”

The Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under the baton of Steven Sloane let the elements of dreams and the spicy fundamentals, of the illustrious and the ridiculous of everyday life become a colourful arc of sound – and made it clear at every moment that Britten’s sound worlds live on melodic and lyrical inspiration.
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Rolf Urs Ringger, 25/11/2015

Steven Sloane moves through Britten’s music like a fish in the waters of a fresh, bubbly and crystal clear source. Immaculate entries from each musician, a rounded and delicate sound, orchestral flow, airy and brisk rhythms.
LE TEMPS, Sylvie Bonier, 21/11/2015

The conductor, Steven Sloane, drew pulsing, feisty and textured playing from the orchestra.
New York Times, Anthony Tommasini, 18/9/2013

Steven Sloane, who already led the baroque orchestra to delicate transparence, unleashed not only the abundance of colours but also the entire force of Bartók’s music.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Gerhard Schroth, 31/5/2013

Steven Sloane excelled at bringing out the mockery Prokofiev’s music makes of the theatre of illusion, with sharp contrasts and agility. This made listening to the singers an even greater pleasure.
Opernwelt, Albrecht Thiemann, February 2013