Reviews

• The new piece, specially commissioned [by the Hallé] (and even tipped, portentously, in The Times as a major event), was Colliding with Chris, a children’s story set to music by Nathaniel Stookey, a composer from across the ocean, and almost as young as Mendelssohn and Mozart when they were writing masterpieces.
  
  His tale – subtitled “the rhythmical tale of a runaway bike” – is about a boy who doesn’t realize that he can’t make his new bike stop just by pedaling [backwards]. So, until he finds the brakes on the handlebars, with help from granddad, he has a wild ride.
  
  A little lad near me […] was on the edge of his seat by the end, his fingers grasping at imaginary brakes as he made screeching noises.
  
  And that, folks, means it worked. Brilliantly.
  Robert Beale, Manchester Evening News, 12/11/1995
• Critic’s Choice
  Marit Hargle, London Times, 12/09/1995