eighth blackbird releases Lonely Motel: music from “Slide” on CD

By -
“The blackbirds are examples of a new breed of super-musicians.” – Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times

eighth blackbird’s world premiere performance of Slide was the centerpiece of the 2009 Ojai Music Festival, where it made an indelible impact. The genre-defying new music-theater piece wowed the Daily Sound as “part opera, part performance art,…and purely amazing,” while for the Los Angeles Times it “epitomized the kind of new musical world that eighth blackbird is ushering us into. …Powerful and impressive.” An eighth blackbird commission*, Slide exploits the unique blend of virtuosity, new-music chops, and youthful exuberance that marks the Chicago-based, Grammy Award-winning sextet as “the straight-A students of the contemporary scene” (Washington Post). Now, after extensively touring the work, the group makes it available to audiences at home, with Cedille Records’ September 27 release of Lonely Motel: music from “Slide.”

eighth blackbird has consistently drawn praise for its performance of Slide. “The blackbirds brought their irresistible élan,” reports the Los Angeles Times; the work was “brilliantly played by the blackbirds,” affirms Musical America; “eighth blackbird navigated Mr. Mackey’s score without blinking, while also playing roles,” elaborates the Santa Barbara News-Press. Moreover, Slide was, from the outset, an eighth blackbird project. The sextet was instrumental in bringing together the creative and artistic team behind it, participating in the creative process, and presiding over the whole production, including the recording. The six musicians worked in close collaboration with composer, electric guitarist, and Guggenheim fellow Steve Mackey and 2007 Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer, actor, and singer Rinde Eckert, both of whom join the ensemble on the new album.

The resulting work is a dish for musical omnivores, part song cycle, part rock opera. While the ingredients are finely diced and there are no actual quotations, the songs are seasoned with homages to composers as diverse as Dowland, Mozart, Stravinsky, Piazzola, and the Beatles. This rich brew reflects the eclecticism both of eighth blackbird, whose members “are without stylistic allegiances: Minimalism, Post-Minimalism, experimentalism, New Romanticism, old Expressionism, rock, smooth jazz, not-so-smooth jazz – all come easily and naturally” (Los Angeles Times), and of Mackey, whose ability to incorporate and transform references to music from Monteverdi to Led Zeppelin is “lithe, subtle, and more than a little playful” (Newsday).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Role of Music in Opera

By -
There are numerous books on the topic, and every composer, librettist, director, singer and audience member has their opinion as to what role the music should play in an opera. In a play without music, the words ought to support the meaning behind a character's actions. However, in the case of action movies, often times the action is what tells the story and there aren't words, just images to forward the plot. We might hear music to accompany action, build tension, but the action tells the story. Musicals tend to speak until the emotion of the moment just "has" to break out in song - unless it's something like "Mama Mia" where the dialog is the rails we travel on between songs; the songs themselves, written before the concept of the musical, are the focus of the production, while the story is secondary. Operas are a different beast. The music provides emotion to the words spoken, but it also plays the role of ambience when there is only action. In ...
Read more

Episode 210b: Joyeuse le départ

By -
Image
Podcast:  Play in new window  |  Download Subscribe:  Apple Podcasts  |  Android  |  Google Play  |  Stitcher  |  TuneIn  |  RSS Provost Cunningham has Transmigrated, but to where! What is Dr Sage going to do with his body? And how can she bring home her friends, Abigail and Erasmus, without also bring home Cunningham? What are they going to say when they find the “skeleton” she’s hiding in her closet? Cast: Eddie Louise Clark  as Dr Sage Chip Clark  as Professor Savant Justin Bremer  as the Narrator Emily Riley Piatt  as Abigail Entwhistle, Calypso & Dean Stewart Written by  Eddie Louise Theme music by  Unwoman Sound Design by  Chip Michael
Read more

Teaching Composition – What are we trying to achieve

By -
In the process of learning composition I have spent time with a number of instructors who have encouraged me to write twelve-tone, pitch-class, electro-acoustic and other forms of experimental techniques. No matter how much I might understand and appreciate the work of other composers in the genres, these are not forms of music I resonate with. They are simply not forms of music I listen to and I struggle with the idea of writing them. However, in a Master Class by Libby Larsen she made the comment, “Learn them all, because all forms of music have something to offer.” This I very much agree. There are elements of each of the above mentioned forms (and others) that I do resonate with. Berg’s Violin Concerto is a beautiful twelve-tone work, although it is possible to look at numerous sections of the music with a “tonal” analysis. Another composer friend, Gary Bachlund commented that using these techniques can narrow the choices for how to compose a piece of work. If you look at ...
Read more