“Stick Dance 2 is based on a piece that was, itself, based on a fairy tale. Its movement through time is light and airy, almost weightless, like a glittering dance?”  [HICKEN, “The Newest Music,” American Record Guide 60:1 (January-February 1997) p.245.]

“This was a brilliant, hard-edged Australia landscape of a piece, with piercing outbursts cutting through sliding clarinet wails, delivered with ambassadorial authority.” [William Dart, New Zealand Herald, 27/7/2005]

“The greatest contrast of the evening was in the performance of the contemporary composition Stick Dance 2 by Australian composer Andrew Schultz. The use by the composer of so many diverse elements including percussive sounds, veiled ethereal imagery and modern instrumental techniques, all skilfully interpreted by these talented players, maintained the listeners’ interest throughout this item.” [Peter Williams, Hawkes Bay Today, 3/8/2005]

“The most inventive piece of the evening was Stick Dance by contemporary Australian Andrew Schultz. The exciting piece made me imagine all sorts of weird contrasting sounds from Australia. Pouncing predators, darting insects, slithery snakes and shrill bird calls were suggested by extraordinary micro-tones and trills from the clarinet and unlimited bowing effects on viola. It was a highly successful performance.” [Margot Hannigan, Nelson Mail, 5/8/2005]

“A work by contemporary Australian composer Andrew Schultz opened the second half – Stick Dance 2. This beautifully explored the wonderful tonal relationships between these instruments. Marked by short rhythmic passages linked by sustained notes of various tone colours, the piece created some extraordinary effects that gained the audience’s attention and further admiration for these very fine players.” [Stephen Fisher, Manawatu Standard, 4/8/2005]

“The first thing that struck me when I listened to this disc was how much variety six Australian composers can wring from the same form and the same three instruments. Clarinet, viola and piano is a combination many listeners know from a single canonical source: Mozart’s Kegelstatt. A particular concern of mine before starting was that the clarinet and the viola, working so often in the same register, might leave the textures monochromatic. The worry turned out to be misplaced. Across these six works, the trio yields a remarkable range of colour, partly because each composer has thought hard about how to keep the two instruments distinct, and partly because Francesco Celata and Roger Benedict are alert to every opportunity the writing gives them. The disc is also, in its own quiet way, a feat of advocacy….

A stick dance, you might reasonably expect, will be a percussive affair, and Andrew Schultz’s Stick Dance 2 (1989, revised 2005) duly is. The title points to the South Asian and Indonesian shadow-puppet traditions Schultz had in mind, but the music’s identity is its own: alive, edged, full of small sudden gestures, with microtones in the clarinet and slow glissandi in the viola that keep the listener’s bearings just slightly off. Daniel Herscovitch is incisive here — pointed attacks, clean voicing, the rhythmic spine of the piece firmly held — and the playing as a whole has the quickness of mind that this kind of writing demands.” [Dominic Hartley, “Peripheral Visions: Australian Clarinet Trios, Heritage HTCD119 Review,” Music Web International (June 8, 2026).]

“Heritage releases an enterprising anthology of pieces for clarinet trio from three generations of Australian composers that, in the process, demonstrates a stylistically varied while always imaginative approach at the forefront of these consistently assured and committed recordings….Stick Dance by Andrew Schultz which, as reworked from his earlier piece…, leaves a distinctive impression through often disjunctive contrasts and an ominously visual quality doubtless emanating from its inspiration in Indonesian puppetry.” [Richard Whitehouse, “On Record – Francesco Celata, Roger Benedict & Daniel Herscovitch – Peripheral Visions: Australian Clarinet Trios (Heritage Records),” Arcana, 30 May 2026.]

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