Dino Villatico, Repubblica
At the Festival di Spoleto, the revelation has been the Ring Around Quartet, a pleasant italian group that tackles especially the Italian and French Renaissance repertoire, and does so with extraordinary grace and expressive insight, impeccable intonation, diction that strictly adheres to the spirit of each text. In a word, you could call them perfect... 

 

A.Z. Gazzetta di Mantova

The pleasure and the flavour of an authentic intellectual entertainment. A lively success at Palazzo Te for the Ring Around Quartet, which captures its audience with fresh and nicely sorted voices, grace and accuracy...

 

Brescia Oggi

A different concert, where an excellent technical level meets an absolutely original interpretive approach that combines the singing with gestures, eye glances with body movements, following the meaning of the text besides the rhythm of the sound...

 

Gazzettino di Udine

Singers performing barefoot, extremely simply clothed, bring to life, thanks to their choreography or their signifying playful attitudes, texts and harmonies of immediate expressiveness. Thatʼs the exquisite idea: all the fun the audience is having is already there, in the work itself, thereʼs no need for frills to underscore it, all you need is exceptional harmony, vocal blend and rhythm, like the Ring Around Quartetʼs...

 

Giornale di Brescia

Thereʼs this common assumption that music from the Cinquecento is meant for an audience of connoisseurs, but judging from how the Ring Around Quartet is rethinking it, you might bet there will be more passionate listeners very soon. The Gioco di Voci concert, tastefully and elegantly performed, has brought out the natural liveliness of these pieces. The four singers tackle this Renaissance music with impeccable vocal technique, mutual understanding, admirable intonation, accompanying the performance with lively gestures, choreographic movements and a strategy of glances, bringing to life a real theatrical dimension. 

 

 

 

 

 

Judith Malafronte, Opera News by Metropolitan New York

"Ring Around Quartet and Consort showcases each of its members in imaginative readings, including a few versions for solo lute. Even in ensembles the voices retain individuality, blending gently for the sorrowful “Occhi miei, al pianger nati” and energetically intoning the “Tandaridondella” refrain of Sebastiano Festa’s “L’ultimo dì di Maggio.” Tenor Umberto Bartolini is an engaging performer with an attractive, easy sound, and his drunken opening to Zesso’s “D’un bel matin d’amore” is amusing without exaggeration..."

 

 

 

 

 

Sara Patera, Giornale di Sicilia “What a lovely charm, among frottole and villanelle”
A concert, but then something more: at the Politeama with the Ring Around Quartet. They manage to rivet their large (and mostly young) audienceʼs attention, and to awake their enthusiasm. Gentle sounds that caress the ear. Measured gestures that grant an elegant theatrical element to the chansons and a flexibility of voices that enhances the pleasure of this four-player game. Smiling innuendos, supple weavings of voices, smooth phrasings in a subtly rarefied atmosphere. Barefoot, simply dressed in white, the four genoese performers, expressively attuned, further their song with gracious movements. And one leaves with a sense of joyful lightness.