“Ming Luke delivered the best live theater performance I’ve ever heard of [Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet]”
Allan Ulrich
San Francisco Chronicle
“[Luke’s Dvorak’s Requiem at Dvorak Hall in Prague] was truly outstanding…make that mind blowing.”
Nancy Graham Holm
Huffington Post
“A spectacular concert by the new, 90-piece Symphony Napa Valley under the baton of Ming Luke, the symphony’s new music director who has honed the orchestra to musical perfection.”
George Starke
Napa Valley Register
“An intensely romantic approach, one that more completely reflects the allure of the durable Glazunov music, conducted with abandon by Ming Luke.”
Allan Ulrich
San Francisco Chronicle
“With limitless energy and inventiveness, Ming’s family and education concerts are both highly entertaining and educational.”
René Mandel, Executive Director
Berkeley Symphony
“Ming Luke’s conducting ensured the [San Francisco Ballet Orchestra’s] spirited rendition of the Glazunov score.”
Janos Gereben
SF Examiner
“The San Francisco Ballet orchestra played brilliantly under the direction of Ming Luke.”
Carla Escoda
Huffington Post
“[Luke] has the energy, creativity and charisma not seen in a family show since Leonard Bernstein…and I don’t say this lightly.”
Paul Jan Zdunek, Executive Director
Pasadena Symphony
“Maestro Ming Luke, who so skillfully and sensitively conducted this variety of selections from baroque to Broadway, [had] his audience as much in his thrall as his musicians.”
James Keolker, Napa Valley Register
“One of the hallmarks of the evening’s performance was watching Conductor Ming Luke lead the orchestra in Richard Strauss’ Don Juan, Op. 20. His entire body became a representation of the music. Beginning with staccato jerks of his arms, he wielded the sounds of sections together with grand loops in the air, as if stirring a massive caldron filled with frequencies and vibration. In the soft middle of the piece, his right hand signaled while his left seemed to caress the sound. And near the finish he reached down just a bit below his waist and grabbed for the allegro runs of the violins — pulling a hidden and magical sound out of the caverns of the instruments, their players, the room and the world beyond the knotty pine walls.”
Anne Henderson, Ellsworth American
“The evening began with a spirited reading of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s evocative Russian Easter Overture. Here assistant conductor Ming Luke drew a crisp performance from the orchestra’s horn section. With this work, the orchestra affected a burnished Slavic sheen, with fine brass playing throughout…”
Edward Ortiz, Sacramento Bee
“The symphony came off effortlessly in the Philharmonic’s hands. By the third movement it became clear that Luke and the orchestra were locked in to the work. It was as if the orchestra was honing an already precise musical edge down to a very fine and exact point.”
Edward Ortiz, Sacramento Bee