FOR CLOSE-UPS (SECOND SOLO ALBUM):
“A soprano unlike any other lets loose: Classical’s ‘queen of weird’ lived up to the hype in the Purcell Room at Southbank Centre (…) It’s very funny (…) I desperately wanted to play” ★★★★★ Daniel Lewis, The Times (close-ups album launch)
“The multitalented Héloïse Werner, a singer, cellist, composer, narrator, verbal acrobat and linguistic chameleon, can hardly be summed up in a short phrase. (…) This is a record full of poise, curiosity and playfulness, the result of close listening and risk by all involved. Werner and her colleagues make music that is as singular as it is striking.” ★★★★ Fiona Maddocks, The Observer
” Héloïse Werner is a unique voice in contemporary music performance, literally as a soprano with the same astonishing acrobatic versatility as, say, the late Jane Manning, and also as a composer whose music evokes a uniquely translucent freedom of expression. (…) refreshingly personal musical journey chiefly of her own music, interspersed with the fragile simplicity of Errollyn Wallen’s Tree and sublime arrangements of songs from earlier centuries ” ★★★★★ Ken Walton, The Scotsman
“Héloïse is a force of nature (…) a star (…) she’s absolutely fearless (…) it breaks every single boundary, whether boundary of genre, or whether it’s an original or an arrangement, whether it’s a work or an improvisation (…) all these boundaries are broken (…) a compelling journey on record’ Marina Frolova-Walker, Record Review, BBC Radio 3
“jaw-dropping technical agility combined with an innate, instinctive musicality and boundless, breathless creativity” Pwyll ap Siôn, Gramophone Magazine
“luminous new album (…) killer ensemble (…)” ★★★★★ Claire Jackson, BBC Music Magazine
“After demonstrating her remarkable versatility in her debut album, Phrases, singer/cellist Héloïse Werner pushes the boat out further in close ups, her virtuoso vocal effects reaching a new level of rapid-fire intensity” Apple Music
“This disc captivates listeners with its improvisational and dramatic concept, blurring traditional sounds while showcasing Werner’s technical brilliance, often creating a luminous effect.” Andrew Palmer, The Yorkshire Times
“the product of a preternaturally lively and busy mind, and is invariably fascinating” Sebastian Scotney, The Arts Desk
★★★★★ deVolkskrant
“Héloïse Werner is one of those impressive hyphenate creatives” New Zealand Listener (Lullaby for a sister – song of the week)
“After demonstrating her remarkable versatility in her debut album, Phrases, singer/cellist Héloïse Werner pushes the boat out further in close ups, her virtuoso vocal effects reaching a new level of rapid-fire intensity” Apple Music
“jaw-dropping technical agility combined with an innate, instinctive musicality and boundless, breathless creativity” Gramophone
FOR PHRASES (DEBUT SOLO ALBUM):
“Werner, 31, is a dazzling bilingual vocalist, a multi-instrumentalist, and a composer whose ingenious music — and performances (…) — lets words and music meet, meld and play edgy games together. (…) her sense of fun gives even the most daring pieces a light and engaging touch.” The Sunday Times 10 Best Classical Records of 2022
“The French soprano composer’s debut disc is an engrossing exploration of the range of the human voice, which Werner pushes to its limit and beyond (…) a satisfying hair-raising voyage to wilder shores” ★★★★ The Sunday Times Classical album of the week
“Héloïse Werner and friends create a vivid soundworld (…) Werner’s voice flits between natural directness and operatic expressions, endlessly flexible, theatrical or intimate (…) brilliantly done” ★★★★★ BBC Music Magazine (Choral & Song Choice in the October 22 issue)
“lt is hard not to be in awe of Héloïse Werner: a soprano of extraordinary range, tone and vocal abilities, possessing a seemingly inexhaustible expressive range (…) Werner is a composer of subtle imagination (…) Delphian’s sound is first-rate, catching the full dynamic range and every nuance of Werner’s voice.” Gramophone Editor’s Choice July 2022 & Shortlisted for the Gramophone Classical Music Awards 2023
“It will make you rethink the possibilities of writing or voice – virtuosic, tender, surprising, there’s an almost unschooled immediacy of expression at times that cuts to the heart … [a] solo vocal debut like no other” Andrew McGregor, BBC Radio 3’s Record Review
“absolute tour de force (…) there’s real heart and soul alongside the avant-garde pyrotechnics throughout this recital of new works” Presto Classical Editor’s Choice June 2022
“a staggering debut from an imaginative and original new voice (…) she achieves miracles” Apple Music
“Phrases displays her versatility as a singer and composer, but as musical catalyst too (…) distinctive album (…) Werner is joined by her first-rate regular collaborators” The Observer
“Héloïse Werner’s debut album was one of the most original and creative this year in terms of programming, but it also managed to impress with the sheer virtuosity of the performance. Using the human voice as an instrument, Werner looks at human language from many angles, in contemporary works by 8 composers (including herself).” The Classical Review, Top Classical Albums of 2022
“Phrases’ bolsters Héloïse Werner’s reputation as one of the most gifted and versatile vocal artists of her generation (…) this is one of the most stunning debut albums we’ve heard in a very long time, a magnificent achievement by Héloïse Werner and her musical collaborators.” Europadisc (Disc of the week)
FOR COMPOSITIONS:
“There are also plenty of sparky young composers bold enough to risk comparison with Schubert, Schumann and all those other 19th-century giants by making a distinctly 21st-century contribution to the lieder repertoire. In fact, Héloïse Werner’s Knight’s Dream was doubly audacious — first by daring to set Heinrich Heine in a programme entirely consisting of Heine settings by distinguished composers (Schumann’s Dichterliebe followed straight after the premiere), and second by incorporating new expressive means into the time-honoured voice-and-piano format of the lieder form. (…) All of which perfectly captured the irony, as well as the spookiness, of Heine’s text” ★★★★ Richard Morrison, The Times
“The Werner premiere was captivating. Heine’s words tell of an old, stumbling knight who dreams of dancing every night with his beloved and of his empty despair when he wakes. Werner’s accompaniment tingled in the dark of the knight’s gloomy lodgings, Kynoch creeping through the delicate filigree of the spare accompaniment, feeling his way along the score, sometimes rapping on the piano case to conjure the knock on the door that would herald the knight’s lover. Charlston sang Werner’s haunting, lyrical vocal line exquisitely, alert to every nuance of the text, including spoken interjections in English, amusingly turning on its head the line “Yet never a word would be spoken”.” ★★★★ Stephen Pritchard, The Observer
“But the two most memorable pieces of all were very strikingly different (…) Héloïse Werner’s enchanting Crossings, one of four pieces in the concert that involved a singer, in this case Werner herself, whose wordless phrases were echoed and transformed by the orchestra and vice versa, in ways that were both utterly logical and regularly surprising.” ★★★★ Andrew Clements, The Guardian
“Like Confessional, crossings is written in the soprano-composer’s distinctive language, splattered with colourful timbres (…) Werner chases and catches the phrase into her signature Lear-like expressivo” ★★★★ Claire Jackson, BBC Music Magazine
“If the source material might (stereotypically) suggest music of overblown emotion, then (unsurprisingly) Werner is far more imaginative and subversive. This isn’t a piece about so-called female hysteria, rather how men have for centuries controlled the narrative about women’s bodies and minds. Werner takes the power back — as performer and composer. Her libretto (by Dr Emma Werner, her scientist sister) is a patchwork of infuriating quotes spanning the centuries about women being crazy. Yes, this music should come with a blood-pressure warning. The way in which Werner sets them is smart, effective and provocative.” ★★★★ Rebecca Franks, The Times
“Héloïse Werner’s For Mira (…) is a direct, touching act of remembrance” ★★★★★ Andrew Clements, The Guardian
“Héloise Werner’s for mira, a delicate, sensuous tribute to the late Mira Calix (…) Meditative, generous (…) It spoke to, for and about us all.” Fiona Maddocks, The Observer
“Werner’s musical “dissolves” at the start and end of each cantata were breathtaking: unfamiliar harmonies spooled out of a Handelian cadence; the double bass became a percussion instrument amid guttural squawks from the oboes.” ★★★★ Flora Willson, The Guardian
“you can’t help but be dazzled by it (…) quickly becoming a latter-day Cathy Berberian or Meredith Monk (…) virtuoso entertainment like this is welcome any time” ★★★★ Richard Morrison, The Times
“Héloïse Werner should be a name on the lips of any musical adventurer. (…) This young soprano-composer – and cellist too – is a one-off, who can transform a tiny fragment of song into a mesmerising drama. It’s as if her whole being is double-jointed. Her beautiful voice can flip itself from long-lined lyricism into a battery of percussive instruments: trilling her tongue at jet-propeller speed, turning a simple vowel sound into a complex expression of love or anguish, with a lexicon of facial expressions to match.” ★★★★ Fiona Maddocks, The Observer
“musical passages by Héloïse Werner, introducing a whispering atonality that subtly heightened the sense of subversion and tortured emotion” ★★★★★ Rachel Halliburton, The Arts Desk
“and at one point a full-scale sonic blitzkrieg – all devised by the ubiquitous composer Héloïse Werner” ★★★★★ Richard Morrison, The Times
“Werner’s fade ins-outs, that framed and linked the cantatas, were sonic sleights-of-ear, morphing out of Handel’s motifs into strange harmonies and percussive echoes (…) disconcerting and thrilling in equal measure” Claire Seymour, Opera Today
“On mesure la parfaite entente des musiciens dans l’incarnation de cette musique singulière” Anne Ibos-Augé, Diapason
“le savoureux Close-Ups, de la Franco-Britannique Héloïse Werner, dans la mesure où ce rafraîchissant duo pour violon (Hae-Sun Kang) et soprano (la compositrice elle-même) comportait une importante dimension visuelle, à mi-chemin entre les Récitations, de Georges Aperghis, et les Brèves, de Jacques Rebotier.” Pierre Gervasoni, Le Monde
FOR SINGING:
“the hyper-the hyper-versatile Héloïse Werner, who makes every word audible without recourse to texts” Fiona Maddocks, The Observer
“the vivacious soprano voice of Héloïse Werner pounces on individual notes and words with a tiger’s tenacity and a kitten’s glee” ★★★★ Geoff Brown, The Times
“Héloïse Werner offered more evidence of her extraordinary avant-garde vocal skills” Richard Morrison, The Times
“an amazingly versatile soprano” ★★★★ Richard Morrison, The Times
“Heloise Werner, a brilliant and acrobatic vocalist” Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph
“Héloïse Werner’s pure soprano taking on an almost instrumental quality at times (though she’s no slouch with text either)” Katherine Cooper, Presto Classical
“soprano Héloïse Werner delicately weighing up every word and phrase” Gramophone Magazine
“I was particularly struck by (…) as well as the intensity of the young soprano Héloïse Werner (…) Schumann Street was a fascinating idea, beautifully realised.” Richard Morrison, The Times
“sombre and powerful, it’s a tour de force for its sole performer, the 25-year-old soprano Héloïse Werner, a rising figure on the contemporary music scene. (…) she makes great use of her considerable vocal and acting range (…) Like the soprano Cathy Berberian, whose vocal acrobatics and theatrical prowess fascinated Luciano Berio, Werner must have been a pleasure to write for.” ★★★★ The Stage
“Written for the Hermes Experiment, its exacting vocal lines were delivered with considerable intensity by soprano Héloïse Werner” Tim Ashley, ★★★★ The Guardian
“beautifully matched with Werner’s rich soprano (…) Werner sings with impeccable diction and a dusky, haunting tone.” The Arts Desk
“projected with wry wit by soprano Héloïse Werner” Barry Millington, Evening Standard
“evocative harmonics and a folk-like song for the excellent Héloïse Werner as Perdita” Barry Millington, Evening Standard
“extraordinary” Classic FM
“Werner’s impassioned and masterful performance (…) superbly performed” The Upcoming
“Werner’s ethereal voice blended beautifully with Pashley’s clarinet melody, before breaking into chaotic vocal effects and hand clapping” London Jazz News
“Werner moves on to explore so brilliantly the human apathy that we have for our own life (…) putting you at ease with her theatrical charm. (…) wholly eye opening” ★★★★ The Metropolist
“Some turn out almost as mini-operas; Héloïse Werner and harpist Anne Denholm make a raw lament of Und Wüssten’s die Blumen.” Erica Jeal, ★★★★★ The Guardian
“The audience moved round the venues in random order, stumbling on experiences that were both weird and wonderful. (…) Lisa Hannigan accompanied herself on the guitar, while Héloïse Werner and harpist Anne Denholm created a quasi-operatic heartbreak scene.” Barry Millington, ★★★★ Evening Standard
“soprano, Héloïse Werner really used the words performatively: not just their meaning but their sound. (…) Werner was called upon to imitate the train as well as sing: all carried off with a splendid sense of performance art.” Seen and Heard International
“Werner’s hauntingly beautiful, intense and masterful performance” Everything Theatre
“incredibly strong voice, haunting stage presence and overwhelming physicality” A Younger Theatre
“Héloïse Werner had captivating stage presence as the opera’s anonymous protagonist. (…) Werner used her versatile voice creatively, displaying consistent flair in operatic, avant-garde and bluesy styles. She is surely one of the most exciting young sopranos emerging in the industry.” The Cusp Magazine
“Vocalist Héloïse Werner was exceptional in a demanding score.” Early Music Reviews
“arresting and very powerful” (…) Heloise’s voice has a piercing clarity and depth, one moment beautiful, the next visceral and freighted with distress.” The Cross-Eyed Pianist
“sublime soprano Heloise Werner (…) This is a production of rewarding complexity and beauty, showcasing the brilliance of Miss Werner and Mr Woolgar. Scenes from the End is your opportunity to follow these talents forwards from here.” ★★★★ London Theatre 1
“Scenes From the End. A powerful solo opera performed with precise movement & subtle acting by the virtuosic Héloïse Werner” ★★★★ Fringe Biscuit
“It really is hairs-on-the-back-of-your-neck stuff, and her wonderfully expressive face means that 45 minutes of operatic singing remains engaging (…) It is undeniable that Werner has immense talent” ★★★★ Edfringe review
“Werner’s well-supported voice is powerful, it’s quality sweet and clear (…) remarkable vocal range. Impressive too was her agility, switching from a fragmented spoken to sung language.” Thoroughly Good
“Heloise Werner’s mesmerising performance” Planet Hugill
“remarkable, with some exquisite acting, singing, speaking and physical theatre” Early Music Reviews
“sees Héloïse Werner display extraordinary uses of the human voice with great versatility” ★★★★ London Theatre 1
“using impressive range of her vocal and acting skills” UK Theatre Network
“With extraordinary skill, Werner morphed into countless people, some of them archetypes, and some who felt specific and familiar. Her voice holds huge power and broad options; though it was entirely enmeshed in what we saw, Werner’s singing left a deep impression. (…) Scenes from the End is a dense, exhaustive evening, beautifully wrapped in a clean, mobile performance” Schmopera
April 2019 Classical Music Magazine Artist of the Month – full article here.