Eric Sessler's Organ Concerto (with strings and timpani) received its premier with Alan Morrison, its dedicatee, as soloist. It comes in three mood-distinct movements: an ecstatic first, a quiet and churchy second, and an austere if fast third. Sessler's music is not harshly dissonant, but not harmonically obvious either. At Curtis he studied with Ned Rorem. But it was another Curtis personality whose influence was more strongly felt in the second movement, when the string writing approached the Francophile beauty of Samuel Barber.

Peter Dobrin, Philadelphia Inquirer (February 6, 2007)

The third movement [Organ Concerto}, interestingly, was the only section without a title that invited mental pictures. The composer titled it Momentum after he wrote it, as a straightforward description of its musical nature. It was just as loud as the first movement but combined all that massive organ volume with changes of pace, storms of responses from the strings and timpani, and displays of skill, such as a passage in which the organist dropped his hands and demonstrated his prowess with the foot pedals.

Tom Purdom, Broad Street Review (February 17, 2007)

Organ Concerto. Our protagonists were the superb organist Alan Morrison, and David Hayes at the podium, both Curtis faculty members. Morrison certainly seemed to be having a good time at the console, and Sessler gave him a dazzling feet-only solo.

The middle movement, titled A Child's Night Journey, avoided the balance problem by virtue of the softer soundscape. This was the most effective music in the new work; exotic clouds of harmony wrought from strings and billowing organ tones, with, perhaps, a distant storm sounding in the timpani.

Peter Burwasser, Philadelphia City Paper (February 6, 2007)

David Hayes conducted the Curtis Symphony Orchestra in a Sunday afternoon concert that was highlighted by the world premiere of Eric Sessler's Organ Concerto, composed especially for the new Dobson pipe organ in Verizon Hall. Performed by Alan Morrison, the head of Curtis' organ department, the three-movement work bristles with energy throughout most of its pages but occasionally stops to sing a delightful tune.

Michael Caruso, Chestnut Hill Local (February 8, 2007)

The premier was Eric Sessler's Sonata No. 1, commissioned in memory of the young guitarist Randall M. Hoffman. Concise and demanding glassy articulation in the quick movements, the work covered itself with an elegiac mood. The middle movement, using lower tunings, evoked a mood of longing and distance as the melodic line wove through the harmonic darkness. That mood was held in different degrees through both outer movements. Sessler takes the guitar through harmonic coloration's and shifts in mood, ending with a flurry of notes that brought both the player's hands together over the sound hole.

Daniel Webster, Philadelphia Inquirer (January 24, 1998)

Eric Sessler's Autumn music was neatly built on a three-note motif that grew through evocations of strong light and undertones of menace. It had a life of its own, even as it moved beneath the leafy photography of Sandy Sorlien.

Daniel Webster, Philadelphia Inquirer (November 12, 1996)

As intricately crafted as Eric Sessler's Songs of the King may be, it communicated its emotional message as clear as a bell. Premiered last night by the Music Group of Philadelphia, the choral work, whose text is taken from Alfred Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King, is heraldic one minute, poignant the next.

Sessler, 25, a resident of Feasterville, takes great care in choosing the right music for his Arthurian text. There are few universally recognized connections between the words and music- a Stravinskyesque trumpet blows as the poem proclaims Blow, trumpet, and the Dies Irae appears when the subject of death comes up. No, Sessler is interested in something much more subtle and instinctive, reflecting meaning in his music the way composers like Britten and Faure were able to do so well in their vocal music.

Peter Dobrin, Philadelphia Inquirer (May 13, 1995)

New or relatively new pieces don't appear often on the Concerto Soloists' programs. So it was refreshing on Sunday to hear the ensemble perform Three Pieces for String Orchestra, a remarkable 1991 work by Eric Sessler, at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Rittenhouse Square.

Sessler, a 25-year-old Feasterville resident, once studied at the Curtis Institute of Music. Three Pieces typifies his stunning success of late; in May two area ensembles are to premiere two of his works. And he has won a number of major awards. Sessler wrote Three Pieces in tribute to composer David Diamond, with whom he now studies at the Juilliard School in New York. In it, Sessler, like Diamond, relies on compositional techniques of the past-but finds his own remarkably inventive voice in the process.

Sessler shows his finest colors in Gold, a set of variations on a theme from Nothing Gold Can Stay, a Sessler song that uses a text by poet Robert Frost. Curiously that theme doesn't appear until the end of the movement; in most theme-and-variation movements, just the opposite is true.

Among other things, the variations feature a hauntingly beautiful viola solo accompanied by string players tapping the wood of their bows against the strings in double and triple meter, a rollicking tango-like section, and some fast-and-furious Klangfarbenmelodie, in which various sections play parts of the same melody in rapid succession. In general, too, Sessler's compositional style reveals a master's knowledge of string instruments' colors and capabilities.

Ken Keuffel, Jr., Philadelphia Inquirer (April 11, 1995)

Although still quite young, he already displays a distinctive voice.

Michael Caruso, The Chestnut Hill Local (May 18, 1995)

Sean Deibler's Music Group recently premiered a new work by Eric Sessler that is built around an idea that is just as creative as Cage's radios. Sessler had a stroke of genius, in fact, when he decided to write a group of songs based on the story of King Arthur. For many concert goers, traditional texts such as the Mass have lost most of their meaning. The saga of Camelot is a traditional subject too, but the tradition is still alive. Most of us have had some contact with contemporary books and movies that have stamped the essence of the legend on our brains.

Sessler took his texts from Tennyson's Idylls of the King and his music is full of unexpected touches that surround Tennyson's words with vivid emotional overtones. The opening text is a lengthy battle cry that seems to call for full-throated choruses and big trumpet fanfares. Sessler has the trumpet swing and sway instead, and his choruses are breathless and subdued. The result is an unforgettable image of excited people rushing into a dreamlike haze of combat while the trumpet plays over their heads like a standard.

Tom Purdom, Philadelphia Weekly (June 14, 1995)

Director Gage Johnston's decision to treat the play as a "spoken opera" works beautifully. Eric Sessler's haunting and witty original score [Incidental music for The Changeling], played by a superb ensemble of five musicians, all discreetly on stage in elegant formal dress.

Sometimes the musicians are treated as invisible and sometimes as an ironical presence, providing sound effects on cue and supplying props. The Changeling is well worth catching.

Toby Zinman, Philadelphia City Paper (May 6, 1994)

A talented cast, also including Anthony Byrnes and Michael Lee Sharp, keeps The Changeling moving quickly and clearly, with a quality the director refers to as "spoken opera," many of the speeches cadenced deliberately to Sessler's delicately expressive music.

Mark Cofta, Main Line Times (April 21, 1994)