The premier was Eric Sessler's Sonata No. 1, commissioned in memory of the young guitarist Randall M. Hoffman. Concise and demanding glassy articulation in the quick movements, the work covered itself with an elegiac mood. The middle movement, using lower tunings, evoked a mood of longing and distance as the melodic line wove through the harmonic darkness. That mood was held in different degrees through both outer movements. Sessler takes the guitar through harmonic coloration's and shifts in mood, ending with a flurry of notes that brought both the player's hands together over the sound hole.

Daniel Webster, Philadelphia Inquirer (January 24, 1998)

Eric Sessler's Autumn music was neatly built on a three-note motif that grew through evocations of strong light and undertones of menace. It had a life of its own, even as it moved beneath the leafy photography of Sandy Sorlien.

Daniel Webster, Philadelphia Inquirer (November 12, 1996)

As intricately crafted as Eric Sessler's Songs of the King may be, it communicated its emotional message as clear as a bell. Premiered last night by the Music Group of Philadelphia, the choral work, whose text is taken from Alfred Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King, is heraldic one minute, poignant the next.

Sessler, 25, a resident of Feasterville, takes great care in choosing the right music for his Arthurian text. There are few universally recognized connections between the words and music- a Stravinskyesque trumpet blows as the poem proclaims Blow, trumpet, and the Dies Irae appears when the subject of death comes up. No, Sessler is interested in something much more subtle and instinctive, reflecting meaning in his music the way composers like Britten and Faure were able to do so well in their vocal music.

Peter Dobrin, Philadelphia Inquirer (May 13, 1995)

New or relatively new pieces don't appear often on the Concerto Soloists' programs. So it was refreshing on Sunday to hear the ensemble perform Three Pieces for String Orchestra, a remarkable 1991 work by Eric Sessler, at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Rittenhouse Square.

Sessler, a 25-year-old Feasterville resident, once studied at the Curtis Institute of Music. Three Pieces typifies his stunning success of late; in May two area ensembles are to premiere two of his works. And he has won a number of major awards. Sessler wrote Three Pieces in tribute to composer David Diamond, with whom he now studies at the Juilliard School in New York. In it, Sessler, like Diamond, relies on compositional techniques of the past-but finds his own remarkably inventive voice in the process.

Sessler shows his finest colors in Gold, a set of variations on a theme from Nothing Gold Can Stay, a Sessler song that uses a text by poet Robert Frost. Curiously that theme doesn't appear until the end of the movement; in most theme-and-variation movements, just the opposite is true.

Among other things, the variations feature a hauntingly beautiful viola solo accompanied by string players tapping the wood of their bows against the strings in double and triple meter, a rollicking tango-like section, and some fast-and-furious Klangfarbenmelodie, in which various sections play parts of the same melody in rapid succession. In general, too, Sessler's compositional style reveals a master's knowledge of string instruments' colors and capabilities.

Ken Keuffel, Jr., Philadelphia Inquirer (April 11, 1995)

Although still quite young, he already displays a distinctive voice.

Michael Caruso, The Chestnut Hill Local (May 18, 1995)

Sean Deibler's Music Group recently premiered a new work by Eric Sessler that is built around an idea that is just as creative as Cage's radios. Sessler had a stroke of genius, in fact, when he decided to write a group of songs based on the story of King Arthur. For many concert goers, traditional texts such as the Mass have lost most of their meaning. The saga of Camelot is a traditional subject too, but the tradition is still alive. Most of us have had some contact with contemporary books and movies that have stamped the essence of the legend on our brains.

Sessler took his texts from Tennyson's Idylls of the King and his music is full of unexpected touches that surround Tennyson's words with vivid emotional overtones. The opening text is a lengthy battle cry that seems to call for full-throated choruses and big trumpet fanfares. Sessler has the trumpet swing and sway instead, and his choruses are breathless and subdued. The result is an unforgettable image of excited people rushing into a dreamlike haze of combat while the trumpet plays over their heads like a standard.

Tom Purdom, Philadelphia Weekly (June 14, 1995)

Director Gage Johnston's decision to treat the play as a "spoken opera" works beautifully. Eric Sessler's haunting and witty original score [Incidental music for The Changeling], played by a superb ensemble of five musicians, all discreetly on stage in elegant formal dress.

Sometimes the musicians are treated as invisible and sometimes as an ironical presence, providing sound effects on cue and supplying props. The Changeling is well worth catching.

Toby Zinman, Philadelphia City Paper (May 6, 1994)

A talented cast, also including Anthony Byrnes and Michael Lee Sharp, keeps The Changeling moving quickly and clearly, with a quality the director refers to as "spoken opera," many of the speeches cadenced deliberately to Sessler's delicately expressive music.

Mark Cofta, Main Line Times (April 21, 1994)

Eric Sessler must have worked very hard on the lengthy musical score [incidental music for The Changeling], and he and three other musicians, most of them graduates of the Curtis Institute of Music, play it extremely well.

Douglas J. Keating, The Philadelphia Inquirer (April 20, 1994)