“Ms.Kay plays with the astonishing grace and floating sonorities once ascribed to Walter Gieseking’s renditions. Her tonal control, phrasing, myriad tone colors and harmonic balance all so carefully calibrated with the pedal deserve great admiration. Fortunately, there are still occasions in this world when the achievement creates the name, and not the other way around. By the way, it is not only the soft refined parts that impress, but the technical and highly sophisticated energetic lines, shapes and trills. To summarize, this is an ideal performance played from the heart
-Knut Franke, Fono Forum, Germany
“Piano playing is magical...Kay’s interpretations are highly individual, compelling...something to celebrate”
-The Ottawa Citizen
“such richness of sound, such refinement in the variety of attacks, such a sense of architecture. The result is prodigious, incomparably luxuriant in sound, bold and effortless. All we can do is wait for more from this innately original artist”
-Repertoire, France
“Expectations were fulfilled, the tumultuous applause at the end was a reward for the great performance of this Princeton University Professor.”
-60th Chopin Festival, Czechia
“...the sounds exult...Respect for the text merges with an artistic personality who has grasped it’s profound meaning...the defenders of this approach are not least: Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli...and Richter”
-La Scena Musicale
“Francine Kay gave a performance filled with drama and tonal beauty”
-The Times, Princeton
“Here was music making with beauty of sound, often exquisite delicacy, and real personality...rhythmic vitality and sparkling characterization...Kay’s Andante movement was transcendental”
-The Hamilton Spectator
“...an extraordinary range of colour”
-The Montreal Gazette
“Few performances (Mitsuko Uchida’s come to mind) could match Kay’s thoughtful and delicate interpretation of this concerto- so fresh and spontaneous... Kay’s sparkling E flat concerto was inspired...Francine Kay’s artistry proved enthralling throughout”-
-Times Globe, New Brunswick
“intensity and finesse at the keyboard”
-Town Topics, Princeton
“...refined sense of colour and nuance….pianistic control is exquisite....her flexible tempos daring yet always convincing….mesmerizing, moving…”
-National Post, Canada
“poetic brilliance”
-The Toronto Star
“Throughout the 24 variations of the Rhapsody (Rachmaninoff), achieved the seemingly impossible technical demands with focus and intensity...flawless….Kay kept the audience at rapt attention”
-Town Topics, Princeton