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"Runestad…has a particular knack for marrying powerful music to texts that speak to some of the most pressing and moving issues of our time."
"Pulses quickened particularly in Jake Runestad’s Let My Love Be Heard, an expression of grief so heartfelt that it became uplifting."
"The afternoon’s highlight was Daughters of the Bloody Duke …goofily macabre in both story and music, it’s the rare modern opera comedy – a little campy, winking, silly and smart."
"It is hard to pigeonhole Runestad’s style. At times it is tonal and Romantic, infused with lyrical passages. Other sections suggest John Adams in the driving, rhythmic scherzos. Runestad’s sense of pace and balance makes The Hope of Loving a work that bears repeated hearings."
"…there is clearly a progression in text and music from extreme violence to a kind of peaceful and well-earned acceptance that is not at all sentimental. Light seems to enter the music in Runestad’s beautifully written — and imaginatively orchestrated — final pages and, for the first time, we hear solo voices singing a gentle upward-climbing melody, suggesting that humanity has finally prevailed and might even survive. Turner’s haunting opening words are repeated at the end: “And I keep telling myself that if I walk far enough or long enough, someday I’ll come out the other side.” [Dreams of the Fallen]"