Gramophone, April 2021
Andrew Mellor
[Album Review] Per Nørgård/Paul Ruders
“The American cellist brings much to the works here but the most admirable quality of all is an extreme clarity that suits the music. She manages to maintain it even when her lone cello is wearing multiple masks at once.”
“The accuracy of her intonation, here and everywhere, is uncanny”
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The STRAD, March 2021
JoAnne Talbot
[Album Review] Per Nørgård/Paul Ruders
"All this Wilhelmina Smith captures in this impressive and atmospheric recording, sculpting each rhythmic articulation with verve, to bring personality and contrast to each work."
"Smith proves that contemporary musical vernacular, in all its guises, is totally under her skin.”
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Classics Today, 2021
Jed Distler
[Album Review] Per Nørgård/Paul Ruders
Contemporary Solo Cello Masterworks From Two “Great Danes”
Artistic Quality: 9 / Sound Quality: 10
"Wilhelmina Smith’s lustrous sonority, wide dynamic range, and impeccable control in the highest registers bring forth the music’s potential for color and drama.”
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Strings Magazine, 2021
[Album Review] Per Nørgård/Paul Ruders
"It is an impressive follow-up to her Ondine recording of Salonen and Saariaho.”
"Which makes Smith’s suc cess in making music so precisely calculated sound as if it had been written that way all the more remarkable.”
Music Web International, 2021
Richard Hanlon
[Album Review] Per Nørgård/Paul Ruders
"The American cellist’s technical acumen and expressive intensity well suits all the music here."
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Finnish National Radio, 2021
Kare Eskola
[Album Review] Per Nørgård/Paul Ruders
”Music written by the veterans of Danish contemporary music has recently been on the rise, and no wonder. - - Do the qualities of Danish contemporary music also stand out when played by a solo cello? Based on the new album by Ondine and cellist Wilhelmina Smith, the answer is yes.”
“[T]he works sound fresh. - - [T]he music is understandable and melodic. This is all thanks to Wilhelmina Smith’s gentle, technically meticulous and freely flowing way of playing. Smith already convinced me with her previous Ondine album. - - [N]ow she plays with even more understanding and tenderness. I was most deeply impressed by Poul Ruders’ Bravourstudien, where the emotional expression through simple gestures and clear tonal centers are in fine balance with ’radical bearded modernism’. It also includes enchanting sound effects. - - Nearly as impressive was Nörgård’s 3rd sonata where one can hear age and experience in its compact and prayer-like expression. Considering this, Danish contemporary music remains among my personal favourites, also when reduced to a cello.”
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The New York Times, June 3, 2020
5 Minutes That Will Make You Love the Cello
We asked Yo-Yo Ma, John Williams, Andrew Lloyd Webber and others to pick the music that moves them. Listen to their choices.
[...]
Joshua Barone, Times music critic
It’s often said that the cello resembles the human voice — in range and in timbre. But its sonic possibilities are so much vaster. For example, Kaija Saariaho’s “Sept Papillons,” a 2000 set of solo miniatures played here by Wilhelmina Smith, treats cello technique as metaphor: Harmonics and “sul ponticello” bow movements evoke the butterflies of the title, soft-spoken and fluttering.
[...]
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BBC Music, June 2019
Steph Power
Saariaho • Salonen
"Smith exudes seemingly effortless control through its virtuoso demands.."
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Gramophone, May, 2019
Andrew Mellor
A Pair of Finns
"Smith plays everything here with captivating expression; her sound has both bold lustre and gossamer delicacy."
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THE ART MUSIC LOUNGE, February 20, 2019
Lynn René Bayley
Wilhelmina Smith Plays Salonen & Saariaho
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The New York Times, May 5, 2017
Moonlit Handel: This Week’s 8 Best Classical Music Moments
ANDREW NORMAN, MAY 1
Stuttering Bow, Crumbling Fresco
Watch "The Companion Guide to Rome," performed by the Variation Trio
"All this Wilhelmina Smith captures in this impressive and atmospheric recording, sculpting each rhythmic articulation with verve, to bring personality and contrast to each work."
"Smith proves that contemporary musical vernacular, in all its guises, is totally under her skin.”
— The STRAD (March 2021)
"American cellist Wilhelmina Smith has studied every centimetre of the score and unleashes its drama in a brilliantly characterised rendition... Once again Smith delivers another mesmerising performance and emerges as a consummate communicator of the new virtuosity.”
— The STRAD (June 2019)
"six Bach compositions played live beautifully by world-class cellist Wilhelmina Smith"
— Minneapolis Star Tribune (Jan 25, 2014)
“Winningly individual” — New York Times
“Cellist WIlhelmina Smith played (Herbert’s Five Pieces for Cello and Orchestra) with skill and beauty”
— Philadelphia Inquirer
“The music-making on display here showed not a trace of showmanship; its ingratiatingly casual air gave way to visceral interpretive passion.” (Bargemusic)
— New York Times
“Wilhelmina Smith had the courage to present an intelligent and individual reading of Bach’s C minor Suite which was modern rather than Baroque, with no sign of any conventional conservatoire Romanticism. There was such an abundance of ideas that she could be reproached only with eclecticism...”
— The Strad
Smith is not only adept at new music, but an outstanding interpreter of the classics, as shown by her flawless yet sensitive rendering of the cello part in the slow movement of Dvorak's Piano Quartet in E-flat, Opus 87.
— Portland Press Herald
Smith accomplished a tour de force of virtuosity, but more important, revealed the underlying musical content.
— Portland Press Herald