Critical Reviews:
Recital and Chamber Music

Rosengren has an immediately memorable musical personality. His technique is excellent, his tone is beautiful and he draws a great variety of color from the instrument.
New York Times

The music was sweet, the performance delectable – the audience ate it up. So effortless was the artistry that the musicians seemed to enjoy performing the concert as much as the crowd loved listening to it. Rosengren, an internationally renowned Swedish musician, played with velvety tone, flawless technique and warm temperament. In lighthearted pieces, his clarinet sparkled. In romantic works, it sang like a human voice of exceptional subtlety and range.
Cleveland Plain Dealer

It is great fun to discover a musician whose virtuosity is matched by his artistry. The pleasure is even greater when the performer selects a program as varied and provocative as the one clarinetist Håkan Rosengren assembled at the Ambassador Auditorium.
Los Angeles Times

Here was a man who loved performing, communicating his insights with freshness, commitment and tremendous affection. Rosengren’s is the sort of talent that needs to be heard if only to remind us all that technique is not the end-all of playing – to remind us that without that extra spark, all those notes can become an empty musical experience.
Christian Science Monitor

Rosengren was so much at one with his instrument, united by the airflow, that every note emerging from the clarinet seemed to go through him first. His playing is impeccable, in that his self-expression is unimpeded by any limitations of technique. And “himself” is a very musical self indeed.
Hufvudstabladet, Helsinki

Their performance stemmed out of a perfect understanding of the pieces and an earnest commitment to the music.
Auditorium, Seoul, South Korea

Rosengren is an artist who treats his instrument as if it were the voice. In slow movements of pieces, he emphasizes long, singing, wonderfully-phrased lines with a golden tone, and counterbalances that with immaculate control and virtuosity in bravura passages. In its 12 years, Ambassador International Cultural Foundation’s Gold Medal series has introduced a number of artists who have gone on to major careers, including soprano Aprile Millo, violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and baritone Thomas Hampson. Based on his recital Monday night you can add the name of Håkan Rosengren to that list.
Pasadena Star, Los Angeles

There was some lovely phrasing from the winds, particularly clarinetist Håkan Rosengren.
Santa Fe Journal, New Mexico, USA

A beautifully executed afternoon recital. Rosengren cast a spell.
Columbus Dispatch, Columbus, Ohio

There is no distance between the man and the clarinet. The tone seems to be produced from within his soul. The engagement is total. Rosengren has no limits, neither in technique nor in expression. The visionary musicality gives the playing its final touch and transforms ability and knowledge into art.
Politiken, Copenhagen

The Esperia Foundation presented the astounding Swedish clarinetist, Håkan Rosengren, in a recital that was a revelation. In Rosengren’s hands, the instrument stands vindicated from earlier abuse. Rosengren is more than a master technician, he is an intellectual’s intellectual.
Santa Barbara News Press, California

Rosengren demonstrated his astounding ability as a technician and performer. Anne Epperson provided excellent accompaniment. From the outset of Robert Schumann's "Phantasiestücke," Rosengren and Epperson proved they were in it together, and at no point did they deviate from this plan.
The Orange County Register

The highlight of the evening was Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet which, with Rosengren’s exceptionally sensitively nuanced playing, became one of the best Brahms interpretations I have heard in a long time.
Svenska Dagbladet, Stockholm

Rosengren’s musicality did not seem subject to comings and goings; it informed everything he did, and made one listen intently to each piece. He phrases like a good singer, knowing, for instance, how to diminish and linger just a delicious bit as the accompanimental harmony shifts under him.
New York Times