MARY ELLEN CHILDS composer

“Childs creates a world where we feel anything could happen–a truly universal world that’s primordial in its understanding of humanity.”
– Elle Magazine

"An emotional wild ride, which hits the heart before the brain." -Tokafi

“[CLICK] was a newly born classic, like Steve Reich’s Clapping Music only a thousand times more virtuosic.  Myself, I can’t whistle, but afterward everybody who could, did.” 
– Village Voice

“Mary Ellen Childs’ quiet pointillistic OA POA POLKA had notes peeping from all over the accordion, with the oompah just barely winking into view.” 
– New York Times

“Mary Ellen Childs has a clear style, balancing sound, structure, and rhythmic generation; her work PARTERRE has a purity to it, and reminds me of looking through a beautifully cut crystal glass that refracts the world around it.” 
– MS Magazine

“The gem of the evening was Mary Ellen Childs’ FOUR OF ONE OF ANOTHER.”  – Chicago Tribune

“Walking into NORTH, a new installation by composer Mary Ellen Childs… is like entering a vortex through time and dimension. Surrounded by a video landscape that’s projected onto sculpturally textured walls on three sides and onto a series of three abstract paintings by Lindsy Halleckson on the fourth side of the room, you’re invited to get comfy. A faint smell fills the air. It’s not floral, but subtly cold. Cushions, bean bags and lounge chairs are placed around the floor to sit. As images of the arctic region surround you, a contemporary orchestral score played through multiple speakers, performed by the new music ensemble Zeitgeist, transports you out of yourself… There are ebbs and flows of dynamic music and visuals, where ice, lava, water and sky become characters in the drama. The piece recognizes the awe and majesty of nature and portrays — through sensory channels — the existential threat of climate change.”
- Minn Post, Shelia Regan

“…a virtuoso demonstration of videowall integrating imagery with audio in humor, charm and artistic balance.  It has the integrity that makes visuals and [sound] more meaningful combined than either is alone. -Multi-image Magazine

“…some of the most original stage artistry since Blue Man Group.” 
– Vital Source

“KILTER is a wonderful study of rhythmic counterpoint for two pianists employing delicately restrained energy”
– "Blue" Gene Tyranny, All Music Guide

Mary Ellen Childs’ hypnotic, scary and wonderful WRECK was written for a full-length dance work by choreographer Carl Flink, but unlike so many dance scores, it’s more than capable of stand ing on its own. The piece takes place within a ship wrecked boat at the bottom of Lake Superior, and you don’t have to see the action to feel the combination of terror, resignation and physical splendor that Childs’ music conjures up. Scored for three strings, clarinet and percussion, it unfolds in a series of short movements, by turns gently reflective and alarmingly immediate. Childs isn’t above throwing in the occasional horror-movie shriek of dissonance (and those moments are effective), but more of ten she gets a theatrical frisson with subtle and inventive gestures, such as ominous string overtones or the tick-tock of percussion. The rich tonal har monies are deceptive in their simplicity, as you wait for them to explode. Running through the whole piece is a compelling rhythmic undertow — at times flavored with folk dancing, at others marked by exuberant frenzy — that keeps the performance moving for ward.
— Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle

“PARTERRE…a throbbing, postminimal continuum that has both grateful solos and a dark, humid atmosphere.” 
– Village Voice

“The title track of the album, Mary Ellen Childs’ Eye to Ivory (2005), is a 15-minute long journey through the piano, emerging from the unsure undulations of the lowest notes, raucously stomping and angrily plodding through the keyboard in various contrasting sections. One becomes intimately aware of the space and openness of the extremities of the piano as clusters resonate into the void of space and silence and Supové explores the inner workings of the instrument by strumming the stings, providing layers of timbre and depth of sound. The inherent physicality of playing the piano is on full-display as one listens to this work, its kinetic energy infects the ears, and one can almost feel the exhaustion from the energy dispelled in Childs’ composition. From the intensely hammered and resonate clusters to the swaying of melodic middle section, this composition is a pianistic journey displaying Supové’s virtuosity from start to finish.”
– I Care If You Listen

“Mary Ellen Childs’ CLICK won a standing ovation.  A man and two women struck in precise synchronization clave sticks they held, then, like jugglers, turned in deadpan rhythm to slap each other’s sticks. …It would have been “heard,” and enjoyed, even as a silent movie.” 
– Downbeat

“….an enveloping and entrancing audio quilt composed of organic reeds, sylvan accordion, timepiece xylophone, seductive polyrhythms, and somewhat histrionic wordless vocals.  PARTERRE is an altogether surprising, accomplished, beautiful work that creates its own little universe.” 
– Twin Cities Reader

“Music just on the borderline between serious and sassy and constantly crossing over.” 
– St. Paul Pioneer Press

Read article here: “American Composer: Mary Ellen Childs,” by Kyle Gann, Chamber Music, April 2003

ABOUT DREAM HOUSE…

“The propulsive music of Mary Ellen Childs played live by onstage musicians considerably ups the ante. Childs’ score, which sounds like a soundtrack for some noir thriller infected by the driving ostinato of Steve Reich, carves out a menacing soundscape that drives Wreck to its very last gasp.” 
– Dance Magazine

“Here is all the pathos one could wish for in 14 continuous movements, inspired by the composer’s personal brush with the destructive and creative processes of home remodeling: long soulful lines, slow, powerful build-ups,and recorded sounds of actual home demolitions elegantly woven into various sections.  The quietly searing whistling of “Very high” sounds like a broken heart; “Waiting” is also painfully sweet.  The phrases everywhere ar eentirely discernible and feel organic.  Ethel sinks into the music–the playing and the music are united completely.”
– American Record Guide