EDITED REVIEWS & articles

"One would say that the composer is a great inventor who used technology to transcend the possibilities of the voice and of polyphony to create his own universe of sound; singular indeed, as is shown by the three following pieces. It was already clear two years ago that Chant D'Ailleurs had invented a multicultural music.
Viñao's work is a defiant protest against all academia. His music is complex...... but without complexes."
Jacques Bonnaure, LA LETTRE DU MUSICIEN, May 1994


"The listener, attacked by the acidity, the sharpness of these bagpipe-and-young-goat quavering, by the animality of the girl (the singer) worked up by her own cries, is immediately provided with the basic essentials of the astounding message of this pseudo-rural, subtly erudite little marvel, Chant d'ailleurs; discreetly and effectively "technological", situating its musicality between the brutality of the jet and a sophistication full of tact, grace, elegance (evoking the best of Berio: in the light harmony and airiness of its sweet, refined vocalities).
Otherwise, slim heterophony, which is thickened without losing its quality of slimness, by demultiplication of finesse - a feat: multiple slivers of a quivering musical epithelium, set on a thousand levels, in height and in space.
In particular, the hierarchy and balance of these thousand veils of vertical sounds and echoes strike me as being organically perfect, compared to the living "kernel", the human source in the centre, based on voices and simulated animal cries; the dynamic balance of the frail barques of these chords unerringly brings together the simple and the complex; invisible writing that is both generous (global) and finely woven, thread by thread."
Jean Christophe Thomas, LA LETTRE DU MUSICIEN, Feb. 1992


"For dessert, Dinosaur Annex offered up one of its "greatest hits" the Triple Concerto of Alejandro Viñao......The form is sectional, alternating episodes for tape solo, tutti, live instruments solo and with tape, all interweaving in fabulous ways. There is a brilliant finale tutti and an even more brilliant whizz-bang coda. This was a dynamite concert.
Susan Larson, THE BOSTON GLOBE, Nov. 1,. 1994

"One composer, however, who did show that a true synthesis can be made was Alejandro Viñao. His Borges y el Espejo, for soprano (superbly sung by Frances Lynch) and tape manipulated the flow of the acoustic pitches and slides - inspired by the melisma of Turkish singing- in and out of the electronic elaborations, with tremendous expressive flair. What VIñao had particularly well worked out was a sophisticated play of overlaps, points of rhythmic co-ordination, areas of separation and coming together, between the two media, with one event truly triggering another."
Michael Zev Gordon, The Musical Times, May, 1995


"Alejandro Viñao uses "technology to develop a rural and ethnic tradition" in his own terms. (HIldegar's Dream CD). He does so with such mastery that his mixed compositions (which combine the very supple Frances Lynch to a computer always loaded with delicate intentions) achieve a veritable timeless beauty."
Pierre Gervasoni, DIAPASON Harmonie, January 1995

"breaks new expressive ground" (Rashomon: the opera)."
THE SUNDAY TIMES, 25–7-99


"a ravishingly beautiful section in which flute and vocal line change timbre, intensity and dynamics as they curl around and colour Masago’s melismatic narrative" (Rashomon)."
THE STAGE, 22–7-99


".....most convincing because of the material, the composition and the brilliance of the interpreters. The British experimental theatre group Vocem performed Alejandro Viñao’s ‘Rashomon’ - an entrancing, intense re-retelling of Akira Kurosawa’s Japanese film classic"
Badisches Tagblatt, 3-11-1997


The most convincing work of the evening comes from the Argentinean composer Alejandro Vinnao. In a tight-knit production by Henry Akina, the brilliant singers of the British vocal theatre troop Vocem dramatically tell anew a classic story: ‘Rashomon’, in a libretto by Craig Raine. The rich sound-collage, inspired by eastern music, really takes off. The work covers new terrain of expressive, potent deployment of the human voice in a rhythmically pronounced way - and exploring the extremes. It will cut a swathe across larger stages than this.
Stuttgarter Zeitung, 4-11-1997


"(Rashomon)... the players or singers of the Vocem Electric Voice Theatre adhere to the prescribed musical process, compete with the sometimes bizarre machinery and produce something truly unprecedented. The human voice does not merely follow pitch or rigid rhythms but becomes, in pursuit of the highest expressiveness, a swichbox of the soul."
Die Rheinpfalz, 3-11-97


Of vocal, instrumental or concrete origin, the material treated by Viñao (Rashomon) always achieves a high degree of dramatic power. It reveals the details with subtlety and projects brilliantly the dominant characters.
Le Monde 29 –6-99


Viñao has an unerring sense of drama which keeps the intensity unflagging (Rashomon).
Time Out 7–7-99

"a lesson familiar from the Noh-drama, less is more, has been learnt to powerful effect." (Rashomon).
THE SPECTATOR, 31–7-99

“ overwhelming percussive force and intricate polyrhythms " (RIFF)
PUBLICO, Lisbon, July 3, 2008

“ Alejandro Viñao combines long distances in time and space in his music. It seems easy for a composer of a global era . . . it is like a wind that brings different sounds and rhythms to his ears from different parts of the world and from different periods of time in history  . . . Vinao’s electronic works seem to ring in some timeless space ”
THE HELSINGIN SANOMAT, Helsinki, March 7, 2006