Manchester Collective Neon Bedroom Community Alex Jakeman, Flute; Oliver Pashley, Clarinet; Rakhi Singh, Violin; Hannah Roberts, Cello; Beibei Wang, Vibraphone; Katherine Tinker, Piano Manchester Collective’s fourth recording, Neon, includes totemic pieces by Steve Reich and Julius Eastman, as well as works by Hannah Peel and the first concert music composition by Lyra Pramuk. It is a well-considered and excellently performed program. The centerpiece is Steve Reich’s Double Sextet, a work for two “Pierrot plus Percussion” ensembles that won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize. The piece can either be performed live by twelve musicians or by a single sextet
Read moreSteve Reich: The String Quartets Mivos Quartet Deutsche Grammophon Steve Reich wrote his three string quartets for the Kronos Quartet, who have premiered, recorded (for Nonesuch), and continued to champion them. With Kronos still active, why does another quartet record these pieces? Mivos Quartet makes a strong case that there is room for other interpretations of Reich’s string quartets. I remember well being at the Carnegie Hall premiere of Steve Reich’s piece for string quartet and multimedia WTC 9/11, performed by Kronos Quartet. Its incorporation of sound recordings, a dead phone line, air traffic controllers, and those trying
Read moreSteve Reich Reich/Richter Ensemble Intercontemporain, George Jackson, conductor Nonesuch Steve Reich has long admired the artwork of Gerhard Richter, whose abstraction and ties to minimalism seem tailor-made for a collaboration with the composer. The artist’s film Moving Picture (946-3), made with Corrina Belz and based on Richter’s book Patterns, provided just such an opportunity. Reich/Richter was composed to be performed alongside the film and has received over a hundred performances at screenings starting in 2019. This audio recording of the work is amply diverting on its own. The piece is recognizably Reich, with ostinatos, polyrhythms and full-bodied harmonies
Read moreKronos Quartet Carnegie Hall – Zankel Hall Saturday, February 11, 2017 Christian Carey Six Things to Like About Kronos at Carnegie Hall Fifty for the Future Commissioning Project — Kronos used Saturday February 11th’s concert to showcase some of the early entries in their “Fifty for the Future” project. Not only is Kronos recording all of the pieces for young quartets to hear; their website also includes free to download PDFs of scores and parts. Thus, they are creating a new repertory for quartets eager to learn about contemporary music. Garth Knox — Some of the pieces, such as renowned
Read moreSteve Reich The ECM Recordings Steve Reich and Musicians ECM New Series 3xCD 2540-42 After some one-off studio LPs for a variety of imprints, composer Steve Reich found his first label “home” with ECM Recordings (his second, Nonesuch, came after this triptych of recordings). Initially known primarily as a jazz label, ECM had decided to diversify its offerings to include classical artists such as Reich and Meredith Monk. The first of Reich’s ECM recordings, Music for Eighteen Musicians, sold more than 100,000 copies, which certainly encouraged producer Manfred Eicher to continue to take on ambitious classical projects, ultimately starting the
Read moreSteve Reich turns 80 today. I can’t think of a better way to fete the composer on record than DG’s recent reissue of the 1974 recording of Drumming. Performed by Reich and “Musicians,” it presents one of the seminal works in his catalog. Drumming rounded out the first “phase” of his career (sorry, couldn’t resist), and it was followed by pieces that explore intricate pitch relationships and, from the 1980s onward, an increased interest in historical context and dramatic narrative. The triple LP set also contains the vital works Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices, and Organ and Six Pianos. A new piece by Reich will be unveiled
Read moreOpening Night at Miller Theater On September 15, Ensemble Signal, conducted by Brad Lubman, presented an all-Steve Reich program to open the season at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre. There was a sold out crowd, populated both by contemporary music devotees and over 200 Columbia students. Reich turns eighty later this year, and this is one of the many birthday concerts that will fete the composer. Signal has recorded several albums of Reich’s music, including a 2016 release on Harmonia Mundi that features his Double Sextet and Radio Rewrite, recent works that demonstrate the undiminished energy and invention of their
Read moreNew York-based new music collective West 4th (aka W4) are garnering a wonderful reputation in being very active and decisively creative in concepts for their concert series. This coming June 8th, they will put on an all-cello program titled “Cellophilia” where they will feature music not just for solo cello, but for multiple cellos of 2-8 at a time. There are eight cellists scheduled to appear, among them are Mariel Roberts, who is also a co-producer of the concert, and Bang On a Can All-Stars’ Ashley Bathgate. The concert is being funded via Kickstarter. Please click here or on the
Read moreFor the LA Weekly, I compiled a list of what appear to be the best classical music events next year in Los Angeles. (Of course, the 2012-13 seasons haven’t been announced yet, so there will likely be events in the fall that I’ll be crazy about, and REDCAT had not published its Winter/Spring concert schedule by the time I turned my copy into my editors) Just about all my picks involve 20th/21st century music (there’s lots of pre-20th century music at Ojai, and although Mahler may not seem 20th-century to many classical music mavens, over half of his output was
Read more(cross posted to my own blog) I just submitted the following comment to the Nonesuch Records blog in reference to Steve Reich’s unfortunate decision to change the cover art for his forthcoming recording WTC 9/11. I’m a composer and recently blogged about wtc 9/11 on my Web site and reviewed it for Sequenza 21. I think that the cover is perhaps not what I would have chosen, but that said, who cares? It’s a cover. There are no bodies, in close up, falling from one of the towers (although that would certainly have made a more powerful statement than the current cover
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