EINSTEIN'S DREAMS
"The music is glorious beyond belief. The most beautiful music in the city, by far. Can this guy write soaring, glorious melodies! [The lyrics] are spectacular as well! These are people who are meticulous in doing it right."
– Peter Filichia, Broadway Radio
"A theatrical jewel and a must-see for musical theatre lovers . . . Fascinating!"
– Broadway World
"A gorgeous score . . . People with curious minds will find this show light years ahead of the pack."
– Theatrelife.com
"Entertaining and mind-expanding . . . A visual and aural treat."
– TheatreScene
BUSH IS BAD
“Bush-hating has become fun again . . . audiences go crazy!”
– The New York Times
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: cast members Kate Baldwin, Neal Mayer, and Michael McCoy, holding pictures of Ann Coulter, George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney, respectively.
“A sensation! Rosenblum attacks the government with lyrics that draw blood and melodies that stick in the brain!”
– Variety
“Wildly funny, merrily performed . . . the show is miraculously lighthearted in its skewering, parboiling, and devouring of the administration.”
– Backstage
“A brilliantly scathing evening of rampant Bush-bashing! Composer-lyricist Joshua Rosenblum has written an impressive collection of satirical songs that take us through the trials and tribulations of the Bush presidency.”
– NYTheatre.com
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: Joshua Rosenblum, Neal Mayer,
Kate Baldwin, and Michael McCoy
The cast of BUSH IS BAD singing "How Can 59 Million People Be So Dumb."
“Josh Rosenblum’s musical revue starring Neal Mayer, Michael McCoy and Kate Baldwin is as delightful as something so wickedly and shamelessly partisan can be!”
– The L Magazine
“A ton of ingenuity, . . . raucous, borderline orgasmic reactions. Kate Baldwin, Michael McCoy and Neal Mayer are so talented and delightful! Go see Bush is Bad. You’ll have a fantastic time. I guarantee it!”
– TalkinBroadway.com
“Hilarious, unique and clever, stingingly satiric! Performers Kate Baldwin, Neal Mayer and Michael McCoy complement Rosenblum’s genius with their high-energy, sharply sophisticated song renditions and political impersonations.”
– ElectronicLink.com
FERMAT'S LAST TANGO
“...Rollicking, whimsical, catchy, and clever!”
– The New York Times
"A musical about a math problem? It’s a crazy notion, but composer/lyricist Joshua Rosenblum and librettist-lyricist Joanne Sydney Lessner make it work. Fermat’s Last Tango is a bizarre, surprisingly effective, mostly true musical detective story. The score is often operatic in weight, but the talented cast is more than up to the challenge. Chris Thompson displays a booming baritone as Keane, Jonathan Rabb’s pompous Fermat is lots of fun, and members of the ensemble (Christianne Tisdale, Carrie Wilshusen, Gilles Chiasson, and Mitchell Kantor) are excellent. Perhaps the best performance is by Edwardyne Cowan, who plays Keane’s wife. With her beautiful voice, Cowan puts over the show’s one concession to traditional musical comedy, a terrific number titled “Math Widow.” But there are several other enjoyable songs here. Fermat’s Last Tango is definitely worth a listen or two. After all, how many musicals make math seem like fun?"
– Matthew Murray, The TheaterMania Guide to Musical Theater Recordings
At least ninety-five percent of the time, the witty lyrics approach the level of Gilbert or Sondheim, and the sendups of Andrew Lloyd Web[b]er are delicious. Notwithstanding a few metrical changes, the music is never too complex to be inaccessible. (Through-composed, it recalls stylistically the great Golden Apple of Jerome Moross.)
– Aufbau
The show's best feature is clearly its score. The almost through-sung piece was created by the husband and wife team of Joshua Rosenblum and Joanne Sydney Lessner - he composed the music, she wrote the book, and they collaborated on the often clever lyrics. Rosenblum's thoroughly catchy music is a mix of many styles - rock, jazz, tango (of course), even semi-operatic. His deft orchestrations lend the five-piece band a fuller sound than one might expect.
– Talkin' Broadway
In the new music/new musical tradition, Fermat's Last Tango is almost entirely sung-through and some of the music, especially at the beginning, is operatic in flavor. This said, it is very much a fun show. The lyrics are catchy without unduly forced rhymes, and many of the twenty songs are very melodic.
– Curtain Up
THE JOY OF GOING SOMEWHERE DEFINITE
"It's also almost, but not quite, a musical; characters repeatedly burst into song in a score imbued with a country twanginess by the talented Joshua Rosenblum. (The musical interludes are so good, in fact, that the play could support another number or two.)"
– The New York Times
"But it is the songs that ingeniously expand the 90-minute play, making what might otherwise be a quirky sketch on "Saturday Night Live" into a real stage original. Those songs, composed by Joshua Rosenblum, take a slight turn off course to tune in precisely with Mr. Long's play."
– New York Law Journal
THE PIT STOP PLAYERS
“[A] hotshot band of Broadway pit veterans. Color us impressed!”
– TimeOut New York
"One element behind the Pit Stop Players’ appeal is the broad experience of its founder, Joshua Rosenblum, a conductor, composer, pianist and music critic. His imagination and flexibility lend themselves to playfully cohesive programs."
"Mr. Rosenblum’s unassuming podium manner and nerdy wit factored into making an hourlong serving of modern works not just palatable but enticing to an audience not made up of die-hard contemporary-classical fans."
–Steve Smith, The New York Times
Instrumental Music
"The album is titled 'Impetuosities,' after the first piece recorded here, a jeu d'esprit written on commission for Philip Smith, the fabled principal trumpet of the New York Philharmonic and played by him and pianist Joseph Turrin. 'Impetuosities' is an immediately attractive 7-minute romp that must be fun to play; it certainly is fun to listen to. Indeed, all the music here is resolutely tonal, immediately 'gettable.'"
– Scott Morrison, Amazon.com
"The composer accurately described his music as a melding of classical and popular styles. He deploys enough complexity and unexpected twists, though, to keep them from ever falling over the precipice into cliché. The pieces sound like they were a blast to write and perform."
– Stephen Eddins, AllClassical.com
"It is always a treat to hear a composer play his own music, and Rosenblum is a fine pianist."
–John Kilpatrick, American Record Guide
"I was won over to the great fun of hearing Shakespeare’s sonnets sung, musical-theatre style, by four vibrato-laden voices. Rosenblum has a knack for it–the rhythms, the changes of texture, the harmonies."
– John Kilpatrick
