‘Like all the most interesting composers, John Woolrich’s work is a kaleidoscopic mixture: of spiky wit, lightness, dark menace, on canvasses that are hugely ambitious or delicately miniature.  Like one of his anecdotes, I would never predict how a Woolrich piece will unfold; he’s the master of surprise and variation.  I’ve premiered some of the pieces from his Pianobooks, a wonderful collection of dramatic vignettes all with beguiling titles (Five Gestures of Parting, The Gastrolaters’ Final Sacrifice), some no more than 20 bars in length, often sparse in notes but deep in atmosphere, undeniably modern but with the ghosts of the past tiptoeing through them.’
Joanna MacGregor

‘They have a lyric essence yet withhold the lyrical act.  They are miniatures without a trace of epigram.  They are wind chimes, brought to life by mysterious currents, and listeners find their own feelings echoed in the sounds.’
The Independent (Nicholas Williams)