Sep 17, 2024
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John Adams / Louis Andriessen - Short Ride in a Fast Machine / De Snelheid
BBC Music
2002
I Still Play, due May 22, is an album of 11 new solo piano compositions by artists who've recorded for Nonesuch, written in honor of the label’s longtime President Bob Hurwitz as he became Chairman Emeritus in 2017. The album features works by John Adams, Laurie Anderson, Timo Andres, Louis Andriessen, Donnacha Dennehy, Philip Glass, Nico Muhly, Brad Mehldau, Steve Reich, Pat Metheny, and Randy Newman, performed by Andres, Mehldau, Newman, and Jeremy Denk. You can hear Andres perform Muhly’s Move and pre-order the album here.
08.05 17 Bang On A Can held their annual MASS MoCA Marathon (aka Banglewood) in the performance hall of the magnificent museum. Louis Andriessen was present for the performance of two of his pieces, as were the core BOAC composers David Lang. Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon, whose piece Dry was stunning. Along with a world premiere from Jeffrey Brooks, pieces were also performed by Fjola Evans, Lois V Vierk, Nicole Lizee, Judd Greenstein and Mary Jane Leach, and the six hour concert concluded with an ecstatic rendering of Steve Reich’s Tehillim, conducted by Brad Lubman.
05.06.17 Bang On A Can Marathon returned after a year hiatus in a new location, the Brooklyn Museum. The showstopping performance was the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble playing Louis Andriessen’s brilliant, intense De Staat. Rabbit Rabbit performed a beautiful set highlighting Carla Kilstaed’s voice. The Young People’s Chorus of NYC spiritedly performed Joan La Barbara’s theatrical A Murmuration For Chibok.Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble also played Michael Gordon’s multi-timbral No Anthem. I also saw impressive sets by Laraaji, Oliver Lake and avant-marching band Asphalt Orchestra playing selections by The Pixies.
It was 35 years ago today: composer Louis Andriessen's Nonesuch debut album, De Staat, performed by Schönberg Ensemble and conductor Reinbert de Leeuw, was released. With its multi-layered structures, highly dramatic forms, and sheer volume, De Staat (text from Plato’s The Republic) suggests the bright, clangorous Balinese gamelan and the polyphonies of Stravinsky’s Les Noces. You can hear it here.
"A Minimalist classic" —New York Times
It was 20 years ago today: composer Louis Andriessen and librettist Peter Greenwaway's opera Writing to Vermeer was released on Nonesuch. Singers from De Nationale Opera perform with the Asko|Schönberg ensemble conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw. Gramophone calls this collaboration about the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer "altogether absorbing." Time Out New York exclaims: "Nonesuch has gone out of its way to make this recording a striking sonic document." You can hear it here.
Design by Barbara deWilde. Cover: Young Woman Holding a Water Pitcher by Sophie Matisse.
Here's to Louis Andriessen on what would have been the late Dutch composer's 86th birthday.
