“Some rise above their colleagues in how well and originally they communicate. One of the latter is Jeffrey Chappell. He ended his program with a reading of Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit which was one of the finest this writer has heard.”

– NEW YORK TIMES

“Jeffrey Chappell in the prominent piano part was spectacular.” (Scriabin’s ‘Prometheus: Poem of Fire’ at Carnegie Hall with the Baltimore Symphony conducted by Sergiu Comissiona)

— NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

“On a few hours notice, he replaced an ailing Claudio Arrau and performed, without benefit of rehearsal, the mighty Brahms Second Concerto. Chappell came through with flying colors and won a standing ovation.”

– BALTIMORE NEWS-AMERICAN

“Chappell is remarkable in intelligence and sensitivity. His technique is mastered to the point that one forgets it. The heart rules the fingers.”

– LE SOIR, BRUSSELS

“Jeffrey Chappell, soloist in Rhapsody in Blue, stylistically was one of the most persuasive pianists I’ve heard.”

– HOUSTON CHRONICLE

“In ‘American Sonata’, composed by Mr. Chappell, he incorporated jazz, classical, and contemporary elements into a single work reminiscent of Erroll Garner and George Gershwin. One might call his style ‘jazzical’.”

– WASHINGTON TIMES

“Chappell established an immediate bond between himself and the audience. His Debussy ‘Images’ transported the listener into a forgotten world.”

– BRAZIL HERALD, RIO DE JANEIRO

“Chappell burst through the Barber Concerto with an unswerving grip on the quick-changing meters.”

– PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

“He continually defies the unwritten law that pianists can’t excel at both classical music and jazz.”

— BALTIMORE MAGAZINE

“Jeffrey Chappell showed us his clean, beautiful interpretation and his enormous resources as a pianist.” (MacDowell Second Concerto)

— EL SALVADOR TODAY’S NEWS

“An extremely talented pianist with power to spare.”

— ST. LOUIS GLOBE-DEMOCRAT

“Performances of Ravel’s Jeux d´Eau and Toccata were fashioned with crispness, lightness and mesmerizing tonal balance, and if the powerful repeated-note figures at the opening of the ‘Toccata’ were impressive, the final pages were simply breathtaking.”

– WASHINGTON POST

“With the world premiere of his piano sonata, ‘On The Wing’, Mr. Chappell weaves jazz and classical music ideas together in a composition that leaves a listener feeling airborne. The second movement is the most spellbinding.”

— BALTIMORE SUN

“There was an infectious grace to his art. It fell easily upon the ears, slipping into the heart like an enchantment. He caught the essence of Mozart’s classical style in fluid, transparent playing of tensile strength and radiant ease, always balanced, never a muscle showing. The sharpness of his rhythmic sense and the seeming spontaneity of his responses carried echoes of the jazz world. This freshness was particularly true in the bare, exposed lines of the second movement, which Chappell infused with wonder as if hearing them for the first time. That movement’s close turned into a gossamer illusion, the upward piano scale dissolving into thin air. In the third movement, he treated each return of the rondo theme as a delicious surprise.” (Mozart Concerto K. 503)

– THE ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL

“The masterpiece of the program was Barber’s Sonata for Piano, Opus 26, which Chappell delivered with a bravura albeit sensitive performance. Chappell is one fine pianist, with more than enough virtuosity for this magnificent work. He had power, virtuosity, clarity and sensitivity, but more importantly, he was able to convey his understanding of the difficult work to the audience. Chappell’s was a magnificent performance of a great work.”

– MONTPELIER TIMES ARGUS

“This piece is one of Gershwin’s attempts to bridge the gap between classical music and jazz, and Jeffrey, who has jazz chops in addition to a formidable classical technique, made a complete success out of Gershwin’s effort, even to the point of giving the faster passages a bebop articulation which the composer would surely have arrived at, had he lived long enough to hear it.” (Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm” Variations with the Key West Pops Orchestra)

– KEY WEST SOLARES HILL

“Chappell’s virtuosity was always honestly applied and impassioned. This was a large-scale, volatile, sweepingly dramatic interpretation.” (Barber Piano Sonata at the National Gallery of Art)

– WASHINGTON POST

“From the very first notes it was clear that this was going to be a performance marked by both fun and virtuosity – and we were certainly not disappointed. Chappell not only exhibited a very formidable piano technique but demonstrated a broad range of feeling for the music, from the impishly playful in the first movement to the delicately lyrical in the second. In the impulsive third movement he tossed off clusters of notes as effortlessly as though they were confetti: colorful, light and dazzling to the ear. The Shostakovich was outstanding, and was, in fact, one of the highlights of this 2009-2010 concert season.” (Shostakovich Second Concerto with the Annapolis Symphony conducted by José-Luis Novo)

– ANNAPOLIS CAPITAL