San Mateo Daily Journal
Tues, October 2, 2007
Rivaling that for power was cello soloist Dahna Rudin in the “Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major” by Dmitri Shostakovich. There is no question of who is the boss, soloist or cello, when Rudin puts bow to the strings.

She is in complete control, with lyrical mastery and full rich tone, she reels off demanding passages effortlessly and holds to her own artistic pace in the extended cadenzas. Clearly a first rate talent with a great reading of a complex work.

Artsopolis
Alumna cellist Dahna Rudin may have stolen the evening as guest soloist in the late Lou Harrison's 20th century beauties "Suites for Cello and String Orchestra."

Artistry is most often exposed in slower movements, and Rudin showed herself to be a complete musician, drawing from her cello a singing timbre — often compared to the human voice — that captured the unique beauty of form, harmony and melodic lines of that rare creature, a composer appreciated in his own times. A real treat.

San Mateo Times
The high point of this concert, however, was cellist Dahna Rudin, who also may be as good as you will find anywhere. In a compelling performance of the "Cello Concerto no. 1," by the late Russian composer, Dmitri Shostakovich, she projected a strong and beautiful tone and when necessary, a dazzling technique. However, she is
definitely a musician first and technician second.

As an artist, she lacks nothing. She coaxes, caresses, cajoles and commands sounds out of her instrument that may be sensitively and
softly violinistic in the upper registers and, through a range of highly controlled dynamics, as dominating and commanding as a string bass in the lower register.

With just the right amount of vibrato, she extracts the most compellingly moving lyrical lines from what is really a very complex and difficult work and projects them over the footlights to touch and embrace the audience. That is a true sign of budding musical greatness.