Sunday, April 27, 2008

STEVE REICH AND KRAFTWERK



Powerplant explores hi-octane percussion-led music, with an electronic sound and strong visual performance. Bringing together percussionist Joby Burgess, sound designer Matthew Fairclough, the Elysian Quartet and visual artist Kathy Hinde.

In 1974, Reich began writing what would be classed as his seminal work by most, Music for 18 Musicians. This piece involved a lot of new ideas, although it harked back to earlier pieces. The piece is based around a cycle of eleven chords introduced at the beginning, followed by a small piece of music based around each chord, and finally a return to the original cycle. The sections are aptly named 'Pulses', Section I-XI, and 'Pulses'. This was Reich's first attempt at writing for larger ensembles, and the extension of performers resulted in a growth of psycho-acoustic effects, which fascinated Reich, and he noted that he would like to 'explore this idea further'. Reich remarked that this one work contained more harmonic movement in the first five minutes then any other work he had written.

different trains

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