"The complete Butterworth songbook", Stone Records, March 2010
Stone treats the songs with the seriousness they deserve, helping them spring to life in fresh and surprising ways. He makes every word count, every emotion real, and resists any temptation to fall back on pastiche folksiness. There’s an improvisatory freedom in his singing too. In the very first song, Loveliest Of Trees, he slurs his sound as if intoxicated with the beauty of nature; in Haste On, My Joys! he pushes his tone almost to breaking point to create a sense of rapture and ecstasy. It doesn’t hurt that his gloriously smooth voice is on top form and his command of vibrato as expressive as ever, nor that Stephen Barlow’s accompanying is precise yet unfussy.
Tenor Kurt Streit (Marquis), mezzo soprano Susan Bickley (Babulenka) and baritone Mark Stone (Mr Astley) made strong appearances in their well defined roles.
Handel's "Xerxes", Stockholm Royal Opera, Oct/Nov 2009
the two basses, Lars Arvidson and Mark Stone, were well in the picture,
the latter sporting a tremendous voice in his second act aria.
Göran Forsling, Seen and Heard International, 15 Oct 2009
Mendelssohn's "Elias", Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, August 2009
El Orfeón Donostiarra y la música de Mendelsohn han protagonizado esta noche la jornada de clausura del Festival Internacional de Santander (FIS), que se ha despedido con uno de los grandes oratorios del romanticismo, "Elías", y una muy aplaudida actuación de la coral vasca.
Junto a ella, la Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, bajo la batuta de su titular, Víctor Pablo Pérez, y los solista Mark Stone (en el papel del profeta), Soile Ikokovski, Natalie Stuzman y Werner Güra han interpretado con solidez una de las partituras más complejas y extensas del compositor alemán, cuando los teatros y auditorios de todo el mundo conmemoran los doscientos años de su muerte.
