Reviewing the world premiere, Tim Page of The Washington Post described the piece as "an engaging riot of orchestral color that lacks the pomposity of so many ceremonial compositions.
"[2] Geoff Brown of BBC Music Magazine later praised the piece for its "celebratory panache," saying that "it spins not only through the colour spectrum but the stylistic spectrum as well: granite dissonances, pensive calm, nervous jazz, Hollywood shock and awe – so many characteristic American sounds find a home with this prize-winning composer, jostling inside a variation chain in fussily luscious orchestrations.
Weak ending excepted, it's an exhilarating ride, blessed with a clear recording that vividly captures the music’s whirlwind textures.
"[3] Laurence Vittes of Gramophone similarly wrote, "An awesome timpani roll [...] introduces passages of frozen time like Nevsky's ice lake leading to Oz-like poppy-field fantasies, delirious woodwinds and brass attitudes, and suddenly you realise you're in the middle of what the composer calls a 'miniature' concerto for orchestra, just the kind of exhilarating showpiece that had been ordered.
[4] Conversely, David Patrick Stearns of The Philadelphia Inquirer described Color Wheel as "good music [...] buried under way too many notes, suggesting how the weight of being a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer can be inhibiting and inspiring.