Albuquerque Tribune

“…in the sextet's piece The Glam Seduction, the 1980s rock music of Eddie Van Halen meets the instrumentation of Niccolo Paganini, a 19th-century violinist who was known for stunning, fast-fingered compositions… The result - Paganini on coke. “

(Performance by Eighth Blackbird – April 2004)

All Music Guide (4.5 stars. Critic’s pick)

“The music is accessible and enjoyable. Sparr's music has been called pop-Romantic, and the composer's own electric guitar certainly injects an element from the pop world, but it's a good deal more rigorous than such a description might suggest. The pieces here contain several basic modes that may alternate or interpenetrate: a light, percussion- and rhythm-oriented texture that draws only minimally if at all on jazz; a near stasis resembling minimalism in two cases marked "Calm"; and a dense semi-polyphony drawn from and labeled as the medieval interlocking technique of hocket.”

“North Carolina's New Music Raleigh, the Netherlands' Hexnut Ensemble, and a variety of individual soloists play cleanly, but are all pretty much subsumed in Sparr's music, which seems evanescent, but actually has a good deal of personality. Strongly recommended for those interested in new experiments with music that incorporates popular elements, but is not ‘crossover.’”

(Review of Centaur Records “21207: Chamber music of D. J. Sparr”)

Arts and Culture Maven

"Electric Bands brings together four of Baltimore-bsaed guitarist/composer D.J. Sparr's works for what he calls electronically-improved chamber ensembles. The creative format results in fascinating combinations and effects.”

“Beautifully spare and evocative...shimmers with emotion”

(Review of Innova Records “D. J. Sparr: Electric Bands”)

American Record Guide

“Glacier (2015) is a concerto for electric guitar and orchestra. In five evocative movements on impressions of Montana’s natural wonders, these are effective tone poems. I’m delighted that the electric guitar does not distract from the expressive pictures, staying away from unnecessary blues and rock inflections. There are touches of sound effects, but they are not distracting. Credit to Mr Fuchs’s unerring taste.”

(Review of NAXOS “Spiritualist.” D. J. Sparr e. guitar soloist on Kenneth Fuchs’ “Glacier” with London Symphony Orchestra)

AXS

“Its seven instrumental and vocal pieces feature all kinds of daring suspenses, gentle clashes and surprises of harmonic scenes that give listeners Sparr’s perceptions of dissonant euphony and cacophony. Some of the works incorporate Sparr’s passion for underscoring the virtuosic parallels of electric guitar and violin, flute and door harp, while others utter the music’s symbolic imagery through such modern instrumentation as sopranino recorder played by leading ensembles with a passion for fusing repertoires. Through it all, D. J. Sparr has beautifully demonstrated his vast stylistic range by utilizing the trailblazing ensemble of New Music Raleigh, Karen Strittmatter Galvin, Hexnut and flutist Donna Shin. Together they blur the lines between chamber music, art music and rock with pervading phrases of pure musical beauty.”

(Review of Centaur Records “21207: Chamber music of D. J. Sparr”)

The Baltimore Sun

“New operas don't often score knock-outs. But, if crowd response were the determining factor, "Approaching Ali" sure sounded like a champion Saturday night at the Kennedy Center, where Washington National Opera presented the premiere of this hour-long piece. The applause was loud and long, a heartening reaction to witness for any freshly written opera. And there certainly was a lot to cheer in this modest-dimensioned, entertaining work.”

 “‘Approaching Ali’…features an imaginative score by Baltimore School for the Arts alum D.J. Sparr. His harmonic style is nicely spicy, but fundamentally tonal, and he reveals a good sense of propulsion; like Ali in his prime, the score is nimble on its feet.”

“…Sparr knows how to send a vocal line soaring vividly, and how to extract a great deal of color from a 10-member orchestra…”

“The opera even has something that you might not expect -- charm. That's no small achievement.”

“…"Approaching Ali" makes a worthy calling card for the American Opera Initiative. It also demonstrates Sparr's considerable potential; his first attempt in this tricky genre lands some very solid punches.”

(Performance by the Washington National Opera – June, 2013)

The Birmingham News

“Electric guitarist D.J. Sparr's Jimi Hendrix-inspired solos were stylishly played. Spirituals combined with Sparr's impressive guitar picking in "Chicken Pickin" to bring the work to a powerful, momentum-building close.”

(Performance with the Alabama Symphony. D. J. Sparr - e. guitar soloist – March, 2010)

The Boston Musical Intelligencer

Kate Soper’s “Song for Nobody,” text by Thomas Merton, featured Emily Marvosh, Brailey, and Michaux with her accordion. Then Marvosh deftly word-painted while she tambourined in D. J. Sparr’s (b. 1975) “William and Emily” (text by Edgar Lee Masters). The tambourine’s rattling on “Death itself” made a clever touch. Marvosh’s true contralto timbre proved pleasing and distinctive.

(Performance of “William & Emily” by Lorelei Ensemble – October 2016)

CD Hot List

“Is it a contradiction in terms to characterize music as “gently challenging”? Because that’s the phrase that keeps coming to mind as I listen to this collection of chamber music by guitarist and composer D. J. Sparr. Drawing on both acoustic instruments and, in several cases, electronic tracks and effects, his music is never confrontational (never, in fact, less than conventionally enjoyable) but also never entirely straightforward: the harmonies are generally consonant but the harmonic progressions (such as they are) are not really tonal; the timbres are bright and often airy, but the mood is sometimes unsettled and slightly tense. In short, this is music you can relax to, but only if you don’t listen closely. It’s all quite wonderful.”

(Review of Centaur Records “21207: Chamber music of D. J. Sparr”)

Chicago Classical Review

“The chirpiest music on Saturday was found from the mind of guitarist/composer D. J. Sparr, whose Woodlawn Drive might have also been subtitled ‘Music Box for Small Ensemble.’ With clarion xylophone blows and bubbly woodwinds, the score seemed to propel onward with the imaginary turn of a crank.”

(Performance by Accessible Contemporary Music – November, 2009)

Classical Voice North Carolina

“He required as much virtuosity on the electronics as on the guitar. Utilizing hands, feet and knees he commanded the most fearsome array of rheostats, potentiometers, semiconductors, and integrated circuits this side of Cape Canaveral. And he concurrently accompanied on the guitar, improvising as he proceeded with astonishing know-how."

(Performance of Paul Lansky: Dancetracks, D. J. Sparr – e. guitar.)

Classical Voice North Carolina

“Approaching Ali, though lighter in theme than the other operas, offers a similar mastery of operatic form on a small scale, and was a welcome addition to this significant area trend…. The opera sparkles in its musical elocution of a simple story”

(Performance by the North Carolina Opera)

Classical Voice North Carolina

“You need not worry that the music will be loud and unpleasant; it is anything but; there is nothing harsh or dissonant in it. Neither is it of the trite sappy, soothing, syrupy New Age background type. Some of the pieces are experimental in the sense that Sparr has determined a principle or procedure to explore and is writing to see how far it can be pushed or sustained, how far he can go in pursuing it. It is an interesting and pleasing blend of electric, electronic, and standard instruments, and the works display a wide and enjoyable variety. Not only does the music bear repeated listenings, it reveals itself as richer with each one. There is about 28-1/2 minutes of unused space available on the CD for more, however…, its absence my only disappointment.”

(Review of Centaur Records “21207: Chamber music of D. J. Sparr”)

Concerto.net

“The audience in the Terrace Theater June 09 was held under the spell and magic of a new opera that Sunday afternoon. An opera that told a story Americans know all too well today of how children can be bullied in schools and how they shrink into their own little worlds of submission, feeling that no one understands them and wondering if anyone ever will. It is a story of role models and the power for good and the enormous inspiration and sway they can hold over children, whether they know it or not. The composer D. J. Sparr seemed equally moved by the pathos of the drama. He lovingly sculpted the melodies around his characters to delineate their emotional states of feeling to be easily felt by the audience….Maestro Sparr’s music has the immediacy of Gershwin, or Menotti, or Copland, and the audience’s reactions are likewise immediate. They were easily caught up in the drama and the power of the music and quick to express their own enthusiasm…. Ali was given an immediate standing ovation in Washington, and with a superb cast it will have the same affect anywhere it is mounted in the USA. Modern Opera for Today’s Audience’s with a real Modern Day Hero...You can’t miss with this one!”

(Performance by the Washington National Opera)

DC Theater Scene

“Washington National Opera has given us a “champ” of a new music-theatre work that is as approachable and inspiring as the great American Muhammad Ali himself. Its creators have bypassed taking a biographical approach, which wouldn’t have worked in this medium anyway, but have crafted something lean, impressionistic and emotionally powerful.”

“The work was so satisfying on many levels, but how I wanted to jump up and rescue the orchestra from the pit to hear what made those sounds. Sparr’s musicality is matched by his inventive instrumentation to get the range of colors he heard for the piece.”

(Performance by the Washington National Opera)

Detroit Free Press

“…bright light(s) of a new generation”

(Performance by New Music Detroit – September 2008)

Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review

The soloists and the London Symphony Orchestra under conductor JoAnn Falletta make of these World Premiere Recordings something definitive and exemplary.

(Review of NAXOS “Spiritualist.” D. J. Sparr e. guitar soloist on Kenneth Fuchs’ “Glacier” with London Symphony Orchestra)

Gramophone

Glacier (2015) is a suite in five picturesque movements for electric guitar inspired by Montana’s national parks, while Rush is a rather Bernsteinian diptych for alto saxophone with a punchy, roof-raising final passacaglia. Both soloists are exemplary. Naxos’s sound is terrific.

(Review of NAXOS “Spiritualist.” D. J. Sparr e. guitar soloist on Kenneth Fuchs’ “Glacier” with London Symphony Orchestra)

Gramophone blog

“… a lovely work for electric guitar and orchestra, Glacier — it’s atmospheric, written and performed with great flair in a highly approachable idiom.”

(Review of NAXOS “Spiritualist.” D. J. Sparr e. guitar soloist on Kenneth Fuchs’ “Glacier” with London Symphony Orchestra)

Grosse Point News

“…ability to combine American vernacular music with current trends in art-music composition that appeals to a broad range of listeners.”

(Performance by New Music Detroit – September 2008)

Iclassical

“On hearing this work, in a first-rate performance from both the electric guitarist D. J. Sparr and the London Symphony Orchestra, one cannot help but wonder why more composers have not conceived concertos for the electric guitar and orchestra.”

(Review of NAXOS “Spiritualist.” D. J. Sparr e. guitar soloist on Kenneth Fuchs’ “Glacier” with London Symphony Orchestra)

ICON

"Sparr’s music is ambitious and challenging, but engagingly so, casting 20th and 21st century music, almost as a whole, through a prism—fascinating but with feeling and subtle humor.”

(Review of Innova Records “D. J. Sparr: Electric Bands”)

Indy Week

“21207 is the summation of Sparr's compositional work to this point, and these delightful recordings should open up doors for him. In moving forward, he's also looking back: The album's seven tracks display his experimental, melodic and formal abilities within a warm, nostalgic frame.”

“Through a series of blossoming sounds, the ensemble's coherence sustains a breathless tension. Eschewing linear development, Sparr lets the composition swell and recede several times. This is music that compels you to clasp the headphones tight to your skull to catch every last decibel.”

(Review of Centaur Records “21207: Chamber music of D. J. Sparr”)

KFJC

D.J. Sparr is an American contemporary composer from Lubbock, Texas. “Electric Bands” is selection of four of his works that showcases his unique style full of rich sound that must be influenced by Charles Ives. “I Can Hear Her…” is a five part song cycle wtih Sparr on his electric guitar and the stunning soprano, Kristina Bachrach, singing the poetry of Patrick Phillips. “Meta444” uses Sparr’s guitar work along with percussive instruments, acoustic violin and piano to create a rich mood piece and study of the interplay of these instruments. “String Quarter: Avaloch” is Sparr’s string quartet ,the Momenta Quartet, performing a piece created at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute. It includes the performers triggering pre-recorded music on their own personal phones. The five parts of “Earthcaster Suite” include guitars, Hammond organ, viola, double bass, mandolin and banjo. This is all a new vision of contemporary classical music, pushing into new territory while holding on to familiar styles. Intriguing, stunning and so beautiful. Such a hopeful work.

(Review of Innova Records “D. J. Sparr: Electric Bands”)

Los Angeles Times

“D. J. Sparr was a terrific soloist.”

(Performance with the Marin Alsop and the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, D. J. Sparr - e. guitar soloist – August 201)

Maryland Theater Guide

“The audience obviously wanted more after the world premiere of Washington National Opera’s Approaching Ali. The 50 minute work… received a standing ovation from an enthusiastic crowd whom over ninety percent actually stayed for a 15 minute Q&A, an awesome feat for any Modern Opera production…The show is a contemporary human story set to a 21st century score, and polished with an accessible finish.”

“Creating a modern opera work without alienating audiences seems to be no small feat.”

(Performance by Washington National Opera)

Mercury News

"One more point about this orchestra [California Symphony] as it celebrates its anniversary: It long has nurtured young composers, including Kevin Puts, who won the Pulitzer Prize in music last month. Its latest young composer-in-residence is D.J. Sparr, whose brand new "Optima Vota: Overture-Fantasia" opened Friday's program. It's less than ten minutes long, and lovely. It spouts streams of colors, which keep rising up like Old Faithful at Yellowstone, each time capped by a brisk descending fanfare from the brass. The piece shimmers and moves in waves, turns iridescent and wondrous. There's something about it that evokes the exhilaration of childhood: sparklers on the Fourth of July, that sort of thing. It grows, pulses, leaps to its pop-Romantic apex and ends like a lullaby."

(Performance with Donato Cabrera and the California Symphony – May 2012)

Mercury News

“Sparr took his inspiration from Karp Lykov, a Russian national who, seeking religious freedom, led his family into the Siberian wilderness in 1936 and lived there, isolated from the rest of the world, until the late 1970s. Cut off from civilization, they were unaware of World War II, space exploration, or television, and spent much of their time recounting dreams.

Cast in a single movement, the 10-minute score melds bright sonorities and shimmering Old World themes.

Two offstage ensembles -- one comprised of flute, violin and viola; the other oboe, violin and cello -- occasionally break through the larger soundscape to give voice to those dreams; chimes and mallet instruments supply a driving pulse.

Cabrera led a relentlessly enveloping performance, one that finally faded away like a memory. "Dreams of the Old Believers" was Sparr's final work for this orchestra, and also his finest.”

(Performance with Donato Cabrera and the California Symphony – May 2014)

Midwest Record Review

“Sparr is on the money throughout with his choice of players and original works. Far from being pots and pans music, this is a delightful chamber work featuring compositions Sparr has written over the last 15 years. Sterling Sunday afternoon listening that’s appropriate anytime at all, this is a new, genre defining high water mark that follows in the footsteps of the greats without dipping heavily into homage (wink). Newbies and vets are sure to boast big grins when checking this winning set out. Well done.”

(Review of Centaur Records “21207: Chamber music of D. J. Sparr”)

Midwest Record Review

A Texas guitar whiz with the chops to bang his sounds out to all fields across the entire music spectrum goes existentially arty here with trips about how Debussy would have written things today. A Sunday afternoon recital special, this date is for the high-minded egghead that would brush off the hoi polloi like lint before ever having anything to do with them. Essential listening for people that like big words.

(Review of Innova Records “D. J. Sparr: Electric Bands”)

Nashville Scene

“Sparr, a gifted guitarist, joined Alias violinist Alison Gooding to perform his "Vim-Hocket, Calm" for electric guitar and amplified violin. Sparr said the great contemporary Dutch composer Louis Andriessen influenced his work. Andriessen often scores his works using instruments usually associated with rock 'n' roll. Sparr also found inspiration in the music of Charles Ives.

His "Vim-Hocket, Calm" is a short, episodic piece that alternates between lyrical passages and aggressive ones. Surprisingly, the electric guitar usually created the most soothing sounds, while the violin part was more angular and spiky. The complex ensemble writing included a slightly out-of-sync canon. To their credit, Sparr and Gooding gave a performance that was always tight…”

The National Young Composers Competition Press Release

“Yehudi Wyner, one of the judges who reviewed Wrought Hocket, described it as ‘intelligently organized, full of interesting opposites and exotic couplings and groupings . . . strong in its tenacious development of the material’.”

New Music Box

And last but not least, the “new”est piece by the youngest composer of the night, D.J. Sparr’s The Glam Seduction, closed out the evening. Starting out with a harmonically reimagined but structurally spot-on arrangement of the opening gesture of Eddie Van Halen’s seminal guitar solo “Eruption” (including devastating introductory thunder drums courtesy of percussionist Luke Hubbley), this Van Halen reference was laid bare. No coy rhythms here. The piece segues quickly from the opening material to a rising line shared among Moore, Trevor, flutist Judy Dines, and bass clarinetist Sean Krissman. This heads-up collective motive returns several times during the work and serves as a chorus of sorts between solo sections for each instrument. Each player in turn does their best metal impression, though I think if the piece had a less evocative title [2] (and performance notes that obscured the origin of the musical material) it’s quite possible that the “metal” elements would be less obvious. In fact, there are many tender and quiet moments and sections throughout the work which set off the wilder and more provocative core and do give the ears a rest before things are cranked up once again. The piece goes out with a bang, as well as a huge swaggering coda that all but invites the audience (as Zuraw suggested in his introduction to the work) to break out their lighters and put their horns up.

(Performance by Aperio Ensemble)

New York Classical Review

“Avaloch set the aesthetic tone for the entire concert, the unique sound of American homespun experimentation, free of ideology and full of curiosity. The piece revolves around an agitated, yearning tune, and the music has a rough-hewn quality, like shape-note singing, particularly in the counterpoint. There is also pre-recorded music that played asynchronously from smart phones held inside ceramic pots by each musician.

Avaloch has a fulfilling sense of waywardness, disregarding obvious formal considerations and searching for a shape organic to itself. That quality, and Momenta’s weighty, lyrical playing gave it a social quality that is fundamental to the Ivesian conception of music making.”

(Performance by Momenta Quartet – October 2015)

New York Times

“The curtain raiser was D. J. Sparr’s “Dacca: Decca: GaFfA” (2008), a bright, cheerfully tonal piece in which attractive melodies shared among bells, a xylophone and a pair of antiphonally placed steel-string acoustic guitars dance around a bed of languid string chords. This pop-inflected piece might have seemed out of place in an orchestral program a decade ago, but it suits the boundary-erasing spirit of today’s new-music world.”

(Performance by the Orchestra of the League of Composers – June 2010)

New York Times

"Some of the most alluring music was written for the character of Odessa Clay, Mr. Ali’s mother, beautifully enacted by Aundi Marie Moore. She spun out the bluesy humming with a honeyed tone, one of several Americana elements of the score."

"[Soloman Howard] wielded his sonorous voice to vivid effect in the title role, his hands trembling from the effects of the Parkinson’s disease that afflicts Mr. Ali."

"Mr. Miller was bullied as a child and lost his mother, Sara, who is poignantly rendered here by the mezzo-soprano Catherine Martin. Tim Augustin offered a strong performance as the bereaved Roy Miller, who valiantly tries to help his mournful son."

"In a genre dominated by four-hour behemoths, it’s pleasantly rare to feel that a work is too short...leaving you wanting more."

(Performance of Approaching Ali by Washington National Opera – June 2013)

Opera News

Critic’s Choice

Pianist Jeffrey Biegel and guitarist D. J. Sparr also provide expert performances in their respective solo pieces. Falletta shows a clear affinity throughout for Fuchs’s warm, spacious, neo-Romantic idiom, and the LSO responds with lush yet pristine playing.

(Review of NAXOS “Spiritualist.” D. J. Sparr e. guitar soloist on Kenneth Fuchs’ “Glacier” with London Symphony Orchestra)

Santa Cruz Sentinel

“Soloist D.J. Sparr wowed an enthusiastic audience…Sparr's guitar sang in a near-human voice.”

(Performance with Marin Alsop and the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra – August 2011)

San Francisco Classical Voice

“…the story inspired a piece that is a blast. Dreams of the Old Believers opens with nebulous strings, bell-like brassy accents and a muted trumpet, until the oboe emerges with a compelling melody that is echoed by the flute moments later…. Dreams of the Old Believers is a well-crafted, very accessible, rich and colorful piece of music with a lot of atmosphere.”

(Performance by The California Symphony – May 2014)

Textura

“Offsetting the classical stateliness of Sparr's writing and [Krisinta Bachrach’s] poised vocalizing is the warble, wah-wah, shudder, and slide of the guitar, the result suggesting what a Handel vocal piece might have sounded like had electric guitar existed during his life-time.”

“Sparr's Avaloch string quartet, executed with conviction by the Momenta Quartet (for whom it was written), asks that the performers not only play conventionally but trigger pre-recorded music on personal playback devices. However experimental such a process might look on paper, in practice the fourteen-minute work impresses as one marked by lyricism and an earthy folk character that calls to mind Appalachian music as it wends its meandering way through bucolic terrain.”

“…the suite caps the forty-seven-minute release with short one- to two-minute movements that succinctly capture both the composer's maverick sensibility and his embrace of elements sometimes viewed as binaries, whether it be acoustic versus electric or traditional versus contemporary. In this pastoral setting and elsewhere, Sparr largely disregards such limiting separations and achieves surprisingly harmonious results in doing so.”

(Review of Innova Records “D. J. Sparr: Electric Bands”)

Washington City Paper
“That titular piece [Carnal Node] is an operatic miniature, the story of a lonely man engaging in an Internet romance, sung by a soprano who “fills the dual roles of narrator and protagonist.... Alternating between lyrical arias of email text and more plainspoken (and often hilariously pert) narration, soprano Kamala Sankaram takes the audience on an operatic journey that at once exalts one of the most common dramas of these modern times and almost explodes it to parody.” (Performance by the Great Noise Ensemble, July 2008)

The Washington Post

“Interwoven with all this was the world premiere of D.J. Sparr's fascinating "The 41st Rudiment," sort of a percussion concerto devised as sound-sculpture collaboration with sculptor Terry Berlier, who built the structures that served as the instruments. Froh danced from one of these sculptures to another, dictating improvised rhythms individually to accompanying instrumentalists and shaping the intensity of the musical structures with a sure sense of architecture. This was music securely joined at the hip with the visual art it partnered.”

(Performance by the Great Noise Ensemble – April 2010)

The Washington Post

“…the title Carnal Node seemed to breathe deviance, but the piece in question, by D. J. Sparr, proved to be an attractive but rather slight cantata about looking for love on the Internet, told in the narrative voice of someone who is anxious to affirm, ‘I am not a nerd.’  “…wisps of music, fleeting as text messages…”

(Performance by the Great Noise Ensemble – July 2008)

The Washington Post

 “D.J. Sparr's Woodlawn Drive is a full-of-tricks sextet that begins with engulfing, clustered yet delicate nature sounds. To oversimplify: Yesteryear – Sparr's grandmother's house in Woodlawn, Md. – materializes; there are fiddling and other rusticities that gradually fade, displaced by a racket of suburban disturbance (traffic, etc.). Joel Lazar conducted this little charmer, which for all the uproar was immediately accessible to anyone who doesn't mind amicable dissonance.” (Performance by the Contemporary Music Forum of Washington, DC – November 2000)

The Washington Post

“[Sparr’s Lunacy Tunas] showed evidence of a vibrant and nimble musical imagination. Beginning with a serenely ascending modal figure in his resetting of Gertrude Stein’s ‘Pigeons on the Grass, Alas,’ Sparr explores a range of manias that elicit a corresponding variety of musical atmospherics in which an overall attention to formal shaping is apparent.” (Performance by the Contemporary Music Forum of Washington, DC – October 1996)

Washington Times

“… Miller’s well-respected book—reduced to a simple yet surprisingly deep libretto by everyone’s favorite American librettist, the skillful Mark Campbell and set to music by D. J. Sparr, a composer we had previously not encountered—has been transformed into a compact, intensely emotional work of musical theater that explores the tragedies and triumphs of the human inscape in unexpected and at times powerful ways.”

(Performance by the Washington National Opera)

Williams College Record

“This work [Wrought Hocket] was the highlight of the Berkshire New Music Festival. One had to admire the startling contrasts between the textures Sparr created.”  (Performance by the Berkshire Symphony – October 1997