Alarm Will Sound is a 20-member chamber orchestra that focuses on recordings and performances of contemporary classical music. Its performances have been described as "equal parts exuberance, nonchalance, and virtuosity" by the Financial Times[1] and as "a triumph of ensemble playing" by the San Francisco Chronicle.[2]The New York Times said that Alarm Will Sound is "one of the most vital and original ensembles on the American music scene."[3]
Alarm Will Sound was founded at the Eastman School of Music in 1996 by graduating members of Eastman's new music ensemble, Ossia. The group's first concert was on May 24, 2001, when they performed Steve Reich's pieces Tehillim and The Desert Music with Ossia.[13]
From 2004 to 2007, they were musical artists-in-residence at Dickinson College. ASCAP recognized Alarm Will Sound with its Concert Music Award in 2006 for "the virtuosity, passion and commitment with which they perform and champion the repertory for the 21st century."[14]
After two recordings of music written by Steve Reich in 2001 and 2002, Alarm Will Sound's 2005 album Acoustica features acoustic arrangements of music by Aphex Twin.[15]
In 2010, the group collaborated with Dirty Projectors to develop and perform The Getty Address in its new identity as a live performance piece at Lincoln Center, Disney Hall and the Barbican Centre. Music that Dirty Projectors front-man Dave Longstreth created on a computer by meticulous and complicated sampling, looping and layering was translated and arranged by Matt Marks, Alan Pierson, and Chris Thompson for 23 musicians of both bands.[citation needed]
In 2011 at Carnegie Hall, the group presented 1969, a multimedia event that uses music, images, text, and staging to tell the compelling story of great musicians—John Lennon, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio, and Leonard Bernstein—striving for a new music and a new world amidst the turmoil of the late 1960s. 1969's unconventional approach combining music, history, and ideas has been critically praised by The New York Times ("...a swirling, heady meditation on the intersection of experimental and commercial spheres, and of social and aesthetic agendas.... a consistent wonder."),[16] and the LA Times (“They exploded musical genres, made history come alive and demonstrated that art—original, vivid, reckless—can lift the grim clouds of current events, if only for two hours.”)[17]
Canzonas Americanas, their 2012 release on Cantaloupe features music by Derek Bermel whose eclectic approach draws on the musical traditions of Europe, North and South America, and Africa. The San Francisco Classical Voice says about Alarm Will Sound, "It's hard to imagine another ensemble that could handle the vast range of musical ingredients – including rock, Conlon Nancarrow–style layered rhythms, jazz, and especially world music influences ranging from Brazilian choros to West African balafon – that inform this wildly eclectic new document…"[18]The Guardian says, "Bermel tends to build his music layer by layer, creating exhilaratingly complex instrumental textures, which Alarm Will Sound realise with great panache."[19]
Alarm Will Sound began their St. Louis Season in 2013 to complement their existing touring schedule and bring to the midwest the work they do around the country and abroad. The goal being to grow a local audience for contemporary performing arts. In St. Louis, AWS has presented concerts at The Sheldon Concert Hall, the Touhill Performing Arts Center and The Pageant.[20]
In the 2013–2014 season, Alarm Will Sound partnered with The Metropolitan Museum of Art and became artists-in-residence at the institution. Their season at the museum includes a performance entitled "The Permanent Collection," a concert of integral works for the sinfonietta; "All Steve Reich," featuring the NY premiere of Radio Rewrite; "Twinned," a collaboration with John Heginbotham, a Brooklyn-based choreographer who worked with Mark Morris; and "I Was Here I Was I," an opera with music by Kate Soper, and libretto by Nigel Maister, performed in and around the Temple of Dendur.
In 2014 Alarm Will Sound kicked off Alarm System[22] a program that brings musical artists from a variety of backgrounds together with Alarm Will Sound to create new work. In the 2014–2015 season the ensemble worked with Medeski Martin & Wood, Valgeir Sigurðsson, and Adult Fur (St. Louis-based producer). AWS presented two concerts in Colorado with Medeski Martin & Wood presenting new pieces by John Medeski, Billy Martin, Payton MacDonald, and Miles Brown (AWS bassist) as well as arrangements of MMW originals like "End of the World Party" and "Anonymous Skulls." A live album of this cooperation "Omnisphere" was released on 14 September 2018. In the 2015–2016 season Alarm Will Sound worked with Mira Calix, Rashad Becker and Tyondai Braxton.
Alarm Will Sound first presented Ligeti, a concert in radio play format. Alarm Will Sound's production tells György Ligeti's story through a blend of music, text and imagery. Centered on his Chamber Concerto and Piano Concerto, the performance makes connections between biography and music, explores the relationship of politics and art, and sheds light on his unique artistic imagination.[23]
Band member Matt Marks, who performed horn, keyboards and electronics, died on May 11, 2018. He was 38 years old.[24]
During the COVID-19 pandemic Alarm Will Sound remained active, recording remotely utilizing software that allowed for real-time musical interaction as well as presenting performances of works like Ten Thousand Birds by John Luther Adams that allow for physical distancing among the audience. The remote recording projects culminated with a series entitled Video Chat Variations that featured new works by Meredith Monk, Tyshawn Sorey, John Fitz Rogers, Jlin, and Daniel Neumann.[25]
In addition to the Video Chat Variation, Alarm Will Sound embarked on other musical projects with Tyshawn Sorey including For George Lewis, a through-composed composition scored for sinfonietta commissioned by the ensemble in 2019, as well as several versions of autoschediasms, spontaneous compositions led by Sorey drawing on the improvisational abilities of the instrumentalists. For George Lewis was premiered in 2019 at Washington University in St Louis and released on an album with two versions of autoschediasms in 2021.
Current members
Erin Lesser – flute
Christa Robinson - oboe
Elisabeth Stimpert – clarinet, saxophone
Bill Kalinkos – clarinet, saxophone
Michael Harley – bassoon, contrabassoon, voice, keyboards
Tim Leopold – trumpet
Laura Weiner – french horn
Michael Clayville - trombone
Christopher Thompson - percussion
Matt Smallcomb - percussion
John Orfe – keyboards, composer
Courtney Orlando – violin, voice, keyboards, accordion
Patti Kilroy - violin
Stefan Freund – cello, composer
Miles Brown – bass
Alan Pierson – artistic director, conductor, keyboards
2013. Neil Rolnick: Gardening at Gropius House (CD) Innova Recordings
Related Research Articles
Stephen Michael Reich is an American composer who is known for his contribution to the development of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, and canons. Reich describes this concept in his essay, "Music as a Gradual Process", by stating, "I am interested in perceptible processes. I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music." For example, his early works experiment with phase shifting, in which one or more repeated phrases plays slower or faster than the others, causing it to go "out of phase." This creates new musical patterns in a perceptible flow.
Music for 18 Musicians is a work of minimalist music composed by Steve Reich during 1974–1976. Its world premiere was on April 24, 1976, at The Town Hall in the Midtown Manhattan Theater District. Following this, a recording of the piece was released on the ECM New Series in 1978.
Bang on a Can is a multi-faceted contemporary classical music organization based in New York City. It was founded in 1987 by three American composers who remain its artistic directors: Julia Wolfe, David Lang, and Michael Gordon. Called "the country's most important vehicle for contemporary music" by the San Francisco Chronicle, the organization focuses on the presentation of new concert music, and has presented hundreds of musical events worldwide.
City Life is a minimalist composition by Steve Reich written in 1995. The work was commissioned by Ensemble Modern, the London Sinfonietta, and the Ensemble Intercontemporain. It premiered in March 1995 and was recorded on the Nonesuch label in 1996.
Derek Bermel is an American composer, clarinetist and conductor whose music blends various facets of world music, funk and jazz with largely classical performing forces and musical vocabulary. He is the recipient of various awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the American Academy in Rome's Rome Prize awarded to artists for a year-long residency in Rome.
Steve Reich and Musicians, sometimes credited as the Steve Reich Ensemble, is a musical ensemble founded and led by the American composer Steve Reich. The group has premiered and performed many of Reich's works both nationally and internationally. In 1999, Reich received a Grammy Award for "Best Small Ensemble Performance " for the ensemble's performance of Music for 18 Musicians.
Eighth Blackbird is an American contemporary music sextet based in Chicago, composed of flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, and cello. Their name derives from the eighth stanza of Wallace Stevens' poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.
The Stone is a not-for-profit experimental music performance space located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood in New York City. It was founded in April 2005 by John Zorn, who serves as the artistic director. It was named for the late Irving Stone, an "inveterate concertgoer" in the New York City music community.
Tyondai Adaien Braxton is an American composer and musician. He has been composing and performing music under his own name and collaboratively under various group titles and collectives since the mid-1990s, including in the experimental rock group Battles from its formation in 2002 until his departure from the group in 2010.
The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) is a professional orchestra in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Electric Counterpoint is a minimalist composition by the American composer Steve Reich. The piece consists of three movements, "Fast," "Slow", and "Fast". Reich has offered two versions of the piece: one for electric guitar and tape, the other for an ensemble of guitars. The work shares similarities with Reich's New York Counterpoint.
Ethel is a New York based string quartet that was co-founded in 1998 by Ralph Farris, viola; Dorothy Lawson, cello; Todd Reynolds, violin; and Mary Rowell, violin. Unlike most string quartets, Ethel plays with amplification and integrates improvisation into its performances. The group's current membership includes violinists Kip Jones and Corin Lee.
Ike Sturm is a bassist, composer, and bandleader in New York. He serves as Music Director for the Jazz Ministry at Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan.
Sō Percussion is an American percussion quartet formed in 1999 and based in New York City.
Crash Ensemble is an Irish new music ensemble, which performs a range of contemporary classical music, as well as touring and organising festivals.
Thomas Rosenkranz is a contemporary American pianist, noted for performances of modern and international music.
Tyshawn Sorey is an American composer, multi-instrumentalist, and professor of contemporary music.
Radio Rewrite is a 2012 musical composition by the American composer Steve Reich, inspired by two songs by the British rock band Radiohead: "Jigsaw Falling into Place" and "Everything in Its Right Place". It is the first time that Reich has reworked material from western pop or rock music.
Linda May Han Oh is an Australian jazz bassist and composer. She is currently Associate Professor at the Berklee College of Music and is also part of the Institute for Jazz and Gender Justice.
TAK ensemble is a contemporary chamber ensemble based in New York City consisting of flute, clarinet, violin, percussion, and soprano voice.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
