Steve Reich's new ensemble work, Radio Rewrite, which draws inspiration from songs by Radiohead, will receive its New York premiere in a concert by Alarm Will Sound at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturday. The all-Reich program also features City Life, New York Counterpoint, and new takes on Six Pianos, Four Genesis Settings from The Cave, and Clapping Music, with the composer joining in. The performance will stream live on Q2Music.
Steve Reich's new ensemble work, Radio Rewrite, which draws inspiration from songs by Radiohead, will receive its New York premiere in a concert by Alarm Will Sound in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium on Saturday. The all-Reich program also features City Life, New York Counterpoint, and new takes on works from throughout his career, including a new version of Six Pianos for solo piano and tape; a purely musical presentation of Four Genesis Settings from Reich's 1994 theatrical work The Cave; and a large-scale performance of Clapping Music, with the composer joining in. For additional details and tickets, visit metmuseum.org.
For those unable to attend, the performance be streamed live by Q2Music starting at 7 PM ET at wqxr.org.
Radio Rewrite is co-commissioned by Alarm Will Sound, which gave the first US performance at Stanford on March 16, and the London Sinfonietta, which gave the world premiere at the Royal Festival Hall in London on March 5. The 20-minute work, inspired by the Radiohead songs "Jigsaw Falling into Place" and "Everything in Its Right Place," is scored for a classic Reich line-up of paired winds, vibes, and pianos, plus string quartet and electric bass.
Reich spoke about the piece and its connection to Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood with WNYC's Soundcheck earlier this week. You can listen to his conversation with the show's host, John Schaefer, here:
"Our roots with Steve Reich go back to the very origins of Alarm Will Sound nearly 12 years ago," says the ensemble. "It was Steve who first told us that America needed its own answer to the great new music ensembles of Europe; it was our recording of his Tehillim and The Desert Music that first put us on the map; and it was in a concert of those works that Alarm Will Sound first appeared on the concert stage. So it's a moving homecoming for us to present the premiere of a new work that Reich has written for us."
This weekend's concert is part of Alarm Will Sound's season-long residency at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which began last month and continues with additional performances in February and June. For details on the residency, visit metmuseum.org.
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