press highlights

About the Company

"The old-fashioned image of a flashily-dressed, self-aggrandizing impresario fades when you meet Squire. He's self-assured, but soft-spoken and even more quietly dressed, and ever since the days that he took over the reins of the Relâche Ensemble, he's proven that this is a way a contemporary impresario operates."
Merilyn Jackson, KEY to Philadelphia, Issue: March 26-April 8, 2007

"The strongest role model [for Peregrine] is Harvey Lichtenstein, who created a haven at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for projects by composers such as Ho, Steve Reich and Philip Glass, as well as theater directors Robert Wilson and Pina Bausch. But while many organizations have elements of what Peregrine is up to, few have connected production, presenting, consulting and research."
David Patrick Stearns, The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 8, 2006

"So there is a definite need…for an organization that is not tied to any particular troupe or even a single art form, but instead acts as a facilitator for disparate artists to expand their horizons."
Shaun Brady, Philadelphia Daily News, June 9, 2006

"Peregrine Arts is born of no small ambitions. When Thaddeus Squire, the founder and artistic director of this new institution, says that his goal is to 'multiply the value of art in the lives of people,' it is no empty slogan. Peregrine launched on the weekend of June 10 with two sold-out performances of Locus Solus…This bold presentation was, no doubt, carefully designed to illuminate the scope of Peregrine's mission…and merely suggested the anticipated position of Peregrine in local, and perhaps widespread cultural realms."
Peter Burwasser, Philadelphia City Paper, Issue: June 22-29, 2006

About Peregrine Arts Presents

"The "what is it?' question that's likely to greet most presentations by Peregrine Arts was unusually unexplainable in its 2007 season opener, The Order of Things, an ambient-music piece by London-based Robin Rimbaud that refracted the time-machine atmosphere of the Wagner Free Institute of Science into a lovely 21st-century dream Saturday."
David Patrick Stearns, The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 26, 2007

"The most important cultural event coming up in Philly this weekend is not dance. It's music that you may or may not want to dance to. Asian-American jazz composer Fred Ho brings his Afro-Asian Music Ensemble in a show he's calling All Power to the People!: The Black Panther Suite at North Broad Street's Freedom Theatre, a former Black Panther meeting place."
Merilyn Jackson, KEY to Philadelphia, Issue: March 12-25, 2007

"Peregrine founder Thaddeus Squire pulled strange rabbits out of the hat when he ran Relâche ensemble, and did so again in ways needed in Philadelphia's serious music circles (serious anything circles, really)…The violin concerto movements [of Locus Solus] were in hypnotic, minimalist style that pricked the ear with motifs of irregular length while drawing you in with an astounding instinct for sonority…Kline has graduated from 'experimental' to 'original'—he's one of America's most important compositional voices—thanks to his burning urge to communicate…"
David Patrick Stearns, The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 13, 2006

"Ho's musical architecture [for Deadly She-Wolf Assassin at Armageddon!] fuses the pristine tonal landscape of Japanese classical music with 70s era progressive jazz. Most impressive was Ho's delicately austere use of the 20-string koto…which paints rich cultural vistas, punctuated by pugilistic jazz riffs."
Lewis Whittington, Broad Street Review, July 14, 2006

"Conceived, co-written and composed by Fred Ho, himself a walking fusion of progressive jazz and cutting edge classical, Deadly She-Wolf was a paragon of shrewd decisions about what this particular theatrical animal would and wouldn't do…you have to recognize the fascinating, singular talent of composer Ho. He's breathtakingly robust, both in the often-atonal jazz sensibility of his baritone saxophone…and in his vividly textured instrumentation."
David Patrick Stearns, The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 27, 2006

About Peregrine Arts Productions

"The artists involved are as surprised as any to witness their involvement in a project that has turned out to involve the oddest of bedfellows. Peregrine Arts founder Thaddeus Squire has long sought out Philadelphia venues that are taken for granted, if not overlooked, and discovered that the Union League, with its air of exclusivity, was interested in hosting a larger, less-conventional public."
David Patrick Stearns, The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 29, 2007