By Stephanie Manning
Clevelandclassical.com
The Quince Ensemble doesn’t specialize in instant gratification. The vocal quartet likes “slow music,” as soprano Amanda DeBoer Bartlett has explained in interviews, and she repeated that sentiment onstage on October 16. “Not slow in tempo, but slow in development.”
That ethos can also form the arc of entire programs, as Quince demonstrated to its audience at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Before the concert in Mixon Hall reached its apex with Courtney Bryan’s Requiem, the quartet built up to the finale by demonstrating just what their voices can do.
DeBoer Bartlett, her fellow sopranos Liz Pearse and Carrie Henneman Shaw, and mezzo-soprano Kayleigh Butcher are all fearless champions of contemporary music, with the pipes to back it up. The four women exhibit a natural teamwork and achieve a beautiful blend, so much so that their voices sometimes seemed to emerge from the hall itself.