 Acclaim for Green Eggs & Ham
Acclaim for Gertrude McFuzz
Acclaim for Play Ball! (Casey at the Bat)
Acclaim for Many Moons
Acclaim for FamilyMusik©
 “An educator, motivational speaker, and game show host, all rolled up in one ... Rob Kapilow’s insightful and entertaining programs ... often bring moments of revelation to even the most seasoned aficionados.”
— Karen Campbell, The Boston Globe (March 22, 2006)
“Rob’s student concerts, delivered with incredible enthusiasm and energy, are the perfect combination of education and entertainment. We look forward to our next musical discovery with Rob as our guide.”
— Roberta Smith, Associate Director of Artistic Administration, Education, Toronto Symphony Orchestra (December, 2005)
“Most adults groan at the idea of family entertainment, which typically implies sickly-sweet stuff for stereotypical kiddies. But it needn’t be so, as Rob Kapilow shows ...”
— Time Out New York, August 2003
“Rob Kapilow knows how to talk to kids. He combines the high energy of a television game-show host and the quicker-than-they-are mental agility of a savvy teacher.”
— Boston Herald
“Kapilow has cornered the market in quality music addressed to children and their families, and within just a couple of years he has become a very hot commodity, one of America’s most performed and sought-after composers.”
— Boston Globe
“If you think you don’t like classical music, you haven’t met Rob Kapilow. And if you think that even the Pied Piper couldn’t make you love chamber music, think again ... Not since the late Leonard Bernstein did his Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic has classical music had a combination salesman-teacher as irresistible as Kapilow...He’s as lively as a top-flight sports announcer (and) as entertaining as a stand-up comedian. But he’s also got substance in spades.”
— Kansas City Star
“Kapilow’s series is the most adventurous of its kind, luring children (and adults) who might not otherwise think to go to a concert. His boundless energy is his biggest advantage ... as he sometimes surges ahead before his last bit has sunk in.”
— The Resident
“A delightfully humorous and charismatic pied piper with the energetic zeal of a televangelist”
— Christian Science Monitor
“I really enjoyed your session and I think you are better than Britney Spears.”
— 12-year-old workshop participant in LA
“Kapilow is a kind of Bill Nye the Science Guy for classical music.”
— Time Out New York Kids
Acclaim for Green Eggs & Ham
“Two minutes with Rob Kapilow and reasons for the Seuss estate granting the composer the unprecedented rights to the story Green Eggs and Ham become abundantly clear: with his seemingly boundless energy and passion for promoting an appreciation of classical music the composer, also nicknamed the ‘Pied Piper of classical music,’ still marvels at his adaptation’s popularity with audiences.”
— Big Apple Parent (8/03)
“Adults will get a chance to hear what a gleefully sophisticated pastiche of modernism sounds like, and children, who might not understand the word ‘absurdist’ but have a natural affinity for the absurd, should feel right at home.”
— Time Out New York (8/03)
“The most popular ‘family music’ since Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.”
— Boston Globe
“Written in an engagingly sophisticated, quasi-Stravinskian musical idiom with no hint of pandering.”
— Billboard
“Rob Kapilow’s Green Eggs and Ham, a merry, whiz-bang romp through the Dr. Seuss classic, is a winner — and for all the right reasons. Let’s dispense with circumspection. This piece is destined to go far ... Green Eggs and Ham dispenses entirely with the saccharine sentimentality that drips from so many kiddie scores. In its place, Kapilow offers a breath of fresh air — perky theater music, spiky, piquant modernism a la Stravinsky’s Petrouchka, silly quotes from pop and classics alike (in this piece, ‘Heart and Soul’ meets Chopin’s Funeral March), jazz bits, soul bits, you name it. Every time you turn around, Kapilow is pulling another rabbit out of another hat. And this piece moves, you know — it really moves. There’s so much going on that our intrepid little concert-goers have no time to get bored. It’s a measure of Kapilow’s expertise that the piece plays off major and minor seconds with abandon, yet the music never loses its atmosphere of slam-bam zaniness. Musically, the score stands up marvelously well — it’s clever and bright, there’s never a dull moment ... the piece is dynamite."
— The Star-Ledger
“Kapilow’s music is a fluent production of the (Nadia) Boulangerie; the style is a brisk neo classical vacuum cleaner that can pick up anything it needs for its purposes, from children’s songs to folk songs, and other familiar tunes to jazz and blues ... He’s so entertaining ... and he talks so energetically that his voice cracks with the excitement of it all."
— Boston Globe
Acclaim for Gertrude McFuzz
“The scores to Green Eggs and Ham and to Gertrude McFuzz are cheerful, brisk neo-classical affairs with lots of familiar tunes from classical music and popular culture worked into the texture; it is the kind of idiom that can move with ease from Stravinskian scrub-a-dub to some low-down blues ... There’s also an element in Kapilow’s work that will remind others of the pastiche scores to early Disney and Looney Tunes cartoons. This observation is meant as a compliment — it wasn’t the intent of those soundtracks to introduce the language of concert music to generations of children, but that’s what they did.”
— Boston Globe
Acclaim for Play Ball! (Casey at the Bat)
“In ‘Play Ball!,’ FamilyMusik© has a hit — a home run, in fact. ... Kapilow’s setting of Ernest L. Thayer’s 1888 text mingles familiar ballpark melodies with a touch of Chopin’s “Funeral March” and some splendid mock-Handelian flourishes. The music is clever ... After the performance was over there was an exuberant ovation. ... Nobody wanted to leave.”
— Boston Globe
Acclaim for Many Moons
“Many Moons is based on the James Thurber story. The libretto by Hilary Blecher is straightforward and atmospheric. The music scampers merrily around [with] the nonstop energy and intelligence that characterizes everything Kapilow does. This piece displays neat craftsmanship, a sharp ear and warm heart.”
— Boston Globe
“It was an opera with a spoonful of honey. Kapilow’s musical setting is light-hearted and craftsmanly.
— Boston Herald
“Kapilow provides a series of lively, sophisticated, often interactive projects that transform classical music into something accessible, engaging, and, dare I say it, fun! ... Shades of The Fantastiks, a bluesy bit reminiscent of Porgy and Bess, a quote from The Nutcracker, even a Mozartean-style quartet that somehow transforms into a jazzy Broadway number. In fact, the shifting and blending of operatic and music-theater styles happens throughout, but the fact that Kapilow does it seamlessly and with such ease and conviction makes it come together very effectively. Kapilow’s music ... is a freewheeling, eclectic pastiche of styles that rolls merrily along from beginning to end. ... The score is colorful, vibrant, expertly crafted, and tunefully accessible ... the audience immediately feels a part of the proceedings. Perhaps the strongest element ... is Rob Kapilow himself, a delightfully humorous and charismatic pied piper with the energetic zeal of a televangelist.
— Christian Science Monitor
FamilyMusik© programs
 Performance Dates
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