A NEW JOY – excerpt from audiophile site Positive Feedback
“From the first tones of the ringing bells that precede the program and on into the carols, hymns, and songs, a spell is initiated and maintained.
The highlight of the album for me is the seventeen-minute plus “Festive Canon for the Nativity of Christ: Christ is Born,” by twentieth century priest/musicologist Georgiy Izekov, who was executed by the Soviets in 1937. Like much of the music in the program of his predecessor, Alexander Kastalsky, whose work was also suppressed (though he was not killed), his piece is here recorded for the first time. This album is a welcome window into another way of conceiving of and celebrating a moment in history and myth which affects many of us, believers and not.”
– Bob Neill, POSITIVEFEEDBACK.COM (December 2006)