Last weekend’s production of American minimalist composer Philip Glass’s Akhnaten was a huge undertaking, and proved a huge achievement for everyone involved.
The IU Concert Orchestra played with skill and concentration; conductor Arthur Fagen did an excellent job of leading them through tough orchestral waters.
Chantal Incandela, www.nuvo.net, March 2013
Conductor Arthur Fagan looked like a Glass specialist, the score of Akhnated never faltering, and the timing of both orchestra and chorus was impeccable from start to finish, (even those tricky Glassian rhythm changes that can play havoc with the mind).
http://sharkonarts.blogspot.it, February 2013
The music is realized stunningly, thanks to conductor Arthur Fagen, chorus master Walter Huff, the two casts, a multitude of choristers, and the Concert Orchestra in the pit. For the orchestra to have labored so successfully through two hours of highly structured and repetitively patterned, potentially mesmerizing developments speaks to their individual abilities and discipline and to Maestro Fagen’s profound mastery of members and material. The chorus, Walter Huff trained, sang sumptuously.
Peter Jacobi, HeraldTimesOnline.com, February 2013