New York Times,
"since the performance I've been curious to hear the rest of the work."
"Drawn to What's Next, Not What Has Been", By Allan Kozinn Jan. 24. 2003
click for complete articleSoundcheck, WNYC
Composer Yoav Gal Takes the most traditional Passover story, and turns it on its head.
John Schaefer,-El Al Magazine,
"Gal’s diverse education allows him to do it all – composing, costume design, video art. All that combined has led to the recent creation of a fresh new opera for a small number of musicians and singers… to give the audience a different sort of opera experience.”
Asi Weinstein
New Theater Corps
... I highly recommend that readers see the full-length production as soon as it opens... Kristin Marting's direction, in combination with Yoav Gal's video design, Gal and Heather Green's costume design, and Juliet Chia's lighting design, furnished the opera with a surreal atmosphere that blurred the boundaries between space and time, and provided a temporary respite from normal life. At the same time, the hybridity of (the opera employed elements from dance, multimedia, music, and theater) facilitated a humanistic exploration of spirituality. I am eager to experience the full-length opera.
Eric Miles Glover
Obscene Jester
the Passion: Mosheh and the Gospel According to Jack Vitrolo at culturemart.
Yoav Gal’s “videOpera” Mosheh, a simple and lovely take on the story of Moses… The 40-minute segment gives a great tribute to the matriarchy so vital to Jewish tradition and lore, an idea often lost in the pop culture of Charlton Heston and “Let My People Go.” … Add visually striking costumes (Gal’s and Green’s designs; think Julie Taymor meets the Bauhaus) and some layered video effects and Mosheh shows much promise.
Posted by Tweed on 2008.01.12 at 07:57 PM
New York Network, (nynewsnetwork.com)
"The singer’s piercing voice and facial expressions, costume — purple and accordion-like — and spiky hair captured the audience’s attention as a video played on a wall behind her. Many in the audience had positive things to say about what they heard."
Lizelle A. Vibar, Audience Explores Young Composers’ Music.
New York Time"…designing a bustle large enough to conceal the tenor who plays Lingus [the dwarf], seemed as much a source of pride to Mr. Gal as writing the piece itself.
Anne Midgette, "Never Say Die in Indie Opera."
about BIT by BIT, CELL by CELL
Dream Magazine, www.dreamgeo.com
"Like clusters of angels caught in various beams of light and held suspended as their songs bleed through to our world."
George Parsons,
johnsonsrambler.wordpress.com/tag/reviews/
"...voice becomes sound, organic becomes digital, Traveller becomes landscape. It is no longer clear in this hexadecimal hallucination who these letters are from, or who they are to. In the end, as the Traveller gives herself up, bit by bit, cell by cell, to the rapture of digital oblivion, she perhaps discovers that after all, she is also the treasure she has been searching for. It’s fairly high-concept stuff – and you can include the low-tech approach in that equation – but perfectly accessible and often quite beautiful for it."
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Startling Moniker
A gorgeous work for Atari 800XL and soprano voice, this multimedia disc on Innova Recordings really threw me for a loop. There are many layers of meaning here, to the point that its ultimately unclear what’s happened. Nevertheless, this release really pushed the envelope of how much can be asked of the listener. I’m more than certain I’ll be using a large portion of 2007 to continue figuring this album out.
–DaveX, December 21, 2006
La Folia
Gal and Kanarek contrive an unsettling universe. Kanarek’s cryptic story unfolds through a traveler’s postcards. Gal’s music extends Rivkin’s serenely innocent soprano with campy processing and gushy electronics, his only tool being an ancient Atari 800XL. Taken together, the audio, the booklet, the enhanced CD’s video and the online site (http://www.worldofawe.net/), Gal and Kanarek lay out a puzzling mystery in a parallel universe utterly askew. The short track “Grid” ranks high amidst techno-minimalist chatter, à la Reich and Lentz. Gal’s artfully constructed retro score achieves more than the work of many who compose with up-to-date gear.
by Grant C. Covell 2008click here for complete reviews
The New Music Connoisseur
"Perhaps this was music that was too pretty, but it gave a nice opportunity for the singers to shine."Barry Cohen, (Vol. 12)
about BERESHIT:
The New Music Connoisseur
"a theater piece in an advanced state and just crying out for a stage…”Barry Cohen, (Vol. 9, No2)"
about ONE WOMAN – ONE HUNDRED BIRDS:
The New Music Connoisseur
"Mr. Gal’s One Hundred Birds and a Woman is beginning to come together perfectly as a ‘falling apart’, a study of frantic dissolusionment."Barry Cohen, (Vol.8 No. 2).
about MAO ZEDONG - JEALOUS SON:
The New York Press
"… a very, very alternative way to celebrate Chinese New
Year… similar to Einstein On The Beach The Death of Klinghoffer and Nixon in China."(issue No. 176).
about 1993 PIANO PIECE:
The San Diego Jewish Press.
"The piece by Yoav Gal favors the bass register almost exclusively…the writing is dominated by insistent ostinatos, rapid rhythmic ejaculations and a wash of pedal. One brief interlude of chords in the midrange relieved the mood of unremitting darkness".
nightafternight.blogs.com/night_after_night/2006/02
Gal's Dr. King made canny use of rhythmic cadences provided by recordings of speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr.; his lovely music turned one happy phrase after another..."