“Her playing is colored by a joy and spontaneity that communicates to everyone around her, audience and fellow musicians.”
The Washington Post
“One meets remarkable human accomplishments every day, but Ms. Robison showed me things I hadn’t known the machine could do- the breadth of tone she summoned, the sweetness of the even, fleet, soft playing. She breathed and phrased and inflected and colored the music like a great singer; only the clarity of articulation suggested the instrumentalist.”
The Boston Globe
“A performance of shimmering nobility. It is a tribute to Robison’s complete control of her instrument that she makes the most of the simplest melodic lines and the most cherishable twists of phrasing. Time and time again she did this in the concert, sharing soft, long-breathed whispers that never lost their tonal luster.”
San Francisco Classical Voice
“Her playing is illuminated by a wonderful sense of fantasy that searches out the music’s inner being.”
Pittsburgh Gazette
“Paula Robison plays exquisitely. The intense humanity of her playing has only deepened with time.”
The Washington Post
“Personality suffuses Ms. Robison’s playing. She is mistress of the pregnant pause, the delicate inflection, the surprising turn of phrase. But the music itself is always the focal point, never the vehicle with which to show off the performer ”
The Atlanta Constitution
“Her playing weds impeccable breath control and dexterity to a tone that seems to inhabit the entire color spectrum with uniform lusciousness. If an infectious charm and vitality informs her playing, that is because Ms Robison knows how to balance her own natural gifts with style, sensitivity, taste, and, above all, a musical integrity that never falters.”
The Chicago Tribune
“A rare artist who can make the flute sound both sensuous and classically pure…An absolute wonder.”
The New York Times
“Quite simply a master of her instrument.”
The New York Sun
“Robison has a beautiful tone which is beautifully varied as is crucial for the recital flute, but rare to this degree. It’s full as needs be, but then narrows down on the music’s demand to a fine line thread, which in itself acquires different timbre while sustaining pure intonation. That says it all for flute playing.”
The San Francisco Chronicle
“She doesn’t seem constricted by the complexities of a score, but rather channels intensity into more direct musical communion. Every phrase she sounds has wit, warmth, grace, point. There is something angelic about her playing. When, at the close of Leon Kirchner's "Flutings for Paula" she uttered a hushed, lingering high tonic, the very air seemed silvery. “
The Washington Post
“...the music of Paula Robison's flute spun like gold among the trees on a starry night.”
The Los Angeles Times
“The Orchestra laid out a cushioned, exotic tapestry of sound, from which Ms. Robison soared triumphant, like a breath of clear air.”
The Wall Street Journal
“She makes beautiful music on that golden rod, producing handsome, expressive tones, articulating assertive musical sentences, flying through quick passages easily and with brio. The melding of glamour and art always makes critics nervous, but it can be viable. Even irresistible.”
The Los Angeles Times
“In her hands the instrument was not merely a flute, but also a violin, birds and opera singers.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Her performance of Mozart’s Concerto No.1 in G possessed all the technical agility, heart’s ease, and winsome charm one could ask.”
Detroit Free Press
“No flutist alive plays this blithe piece with more elegance and plasticity of phrase than Paula Robison.”
The New York Times
“Robison was her customary sparkling self. She effortlessly crowded in more notes in any one breath than anyone ought to have room for and spun out beautifully long lines that again defied normal breathing patterns.”
The Colombia State
“Her lyricism and artistry shine….Robison’s interpretations literally glow with the operatic quality for which she is known.”
Flute Talk
“The audience cheered the composition, the commanding soloist Paula Robison, and the sensitive accompaniment of the Orchestra.”
Weiner Zeitung
“The American soloist was a total pleasure. With humor and fantasy she interpreted the concerto as a living dramatic scene. Instead of relying on singing sound and self-serving virtuosity, she used all the equipment of a fine actor to express the language of the music…thus Paula Robison became in this demanding and angular work a poetic storyteller.”
Politiken, Copenhagen
“She took on a tough program at the Bing Theater of the County Museum of Art Wednesday night, with the first half weighted toward American composers-often young ones-and the second anchored in France. Moreover, Robison pulled it off with style and flair, as well as formidable technique. She is compulsively theatrical, constantly in motion, aiming her instrument at several, often unorthodox, angles, at times bearing down with startling aggression. But she also maintained sensitive balances with her pianist, Timothy Hester, who provided assertive, clearly etched, even driving accompaniments.”
The Los Angeles Times
“Perhaps the most extraordinary moments of the evening were in Robison’s bravura performance of “Voice”, a spectacular tour de force for solo flute from 1971. Multiphonics, timbral trills, key clicks, microtonal slides, shouting and whispering and hissing---Robison used them all to create a haunted figure, alone in an internal wilderness of terror and awe.”
The Washington Post
“Sequenza II by Luciano Berio is notable for its capriciousness that is cherishable, and Paula Robison made it especially so.”
The New Yorker
“ Virtuoso abandon … there’s not an uninspired moment throughout … none surpasses Robison.”
ClassicsToday.com
“The superb flutist Paula Robison may be one of the best kept secrets on America's musical horizon. For three decades this patrician artist has given consistently dazzling performances of both solo works and chamber music scores.”
MVDaily.com
“The true star of the evening was Paula Robison. Her multi-hued tone all but glistened, and her fast, furious passage work was aggressive and gritty as needed. Accompanied by an excellent young ensemble, this unabashedly tuneful work stole the show.”
MusicalAmerica.com
“Superb playing. She belongs unambiguously in the highest echelon.”
Financial Times, London