If “the girl with kaleidoscope eyes” were a musician, she might well have composed something like Terry Riley’s 2014 concerto for organ and orchestra, At The Royal Majestic.
The Kronos Quartet celebrated its 40th birthday on Friday. In Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall, the ensemble explored its history with a performance of Black Angels but also offerred a few surprises.
As I sat in the intriguing darkness of Koerner Hall, Marielle Labèque carefully placed the opening notes of Le fils des étoiles by Erik Satie. They hung in the air like little crystals. This was a simple beginning, yet deceptively so, that would build towards something larger. In turn, these notes would unfold in a continuous stream of build-ups and decays.
The title for this Barbican event certainly threw up some interesting questions. Having failed to attend a riotous dinner party that was characterised by one attendee as “a scream and an outrage”, Nico Muhly set about curating a series of concerts under this title. However, no screams or outrages occurred this weekend.
Here’s a secret: on any given night in New York City and Brooklyn, groups of regular-looking people perform exceedingly difficult music in front of other regular-looking people, sometimes for one hour, sometimes for twelve.
Symposium Hall is a new 158-seat church conversion venue in Edinburgh’s attractive Hill Square. Its mix of tradition and newness made a fitting venue for the final date in Svara-Kanti’s UK tour. Encoded in the name (svara = sound/notes and kanti = beauty) is the group’s raison d’être; the new territory to be found in the marriage of Indian and Western instruments and traditions.
Minimal music, the rhythm- and/or repetition-focused classical genre from the later 20th century, is well represented at Amsterdam's Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. This will surely come to a climax during the 2013 edition of the biannual World Minimal Music Festival, but as Marinissen of Lunapark stated before this warm-up edition: "We just couldn't wait".
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the Kronos Quartet’s ‘Musical Meditation on the Anniversary of 9/11’, the centrepiece of their week-long Barbican residency. Especially, I must confess, when I learned that the recital would feature a children’s choir. There was a chance, I thought, that this would be taking things slightly too far.
Cool venue – cool ensemble – cool concert! The Kronos quartet are successful where so many fail in bringing the often-too-distinct worlds of pop/rock and classical together. This concert highlighted their commitment to forging their own performance aesthetic by only programming music that has been written specifically for them.
Sometimes it seemed as though the sun would never set on Dawn. At nearly three hours long, it made for a blockbuster opening to the '50 Years of Minimalism' festival. Thankfully, the Labèque sisters, a rock ensemble, electronic keyboard and the obligatory tape machine on stage were brilliant company for the whole, overlong affair.
