Alarm Will Sound bring eclectic new works to Carnegie's Zankel Hall

The U.S. première of Richard Ayres’s No. 42 In the Alps was musically delightful, visually whimsical, and all-around hilarious.

“I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music”, Steve Reich wrote in his 1968 essay Music as a Gradual Process. His music of the 1960s, from tape pieces such as It’s Gonna Rain to instrumental works like Piano Phase, employed phasing and looping techniques. These compositions are some of the first examples of both process music and downtown musical minimalism.

Launching a new “Reflektor” series of short festivals, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie invited Bryce Dessner to curate two days of concerts.

The U.S. première of Richard Ayres’s No. 42 In the Alps was musically delightful, visually whimsical, and all-around hilarious.

On Friday night, the Irish new music group Crash Ensemble produced some sonic pyrotechnics to match the Scriabinian lights display at Carnegie Hall’s recently renovated Zankel Hall.