Ok, it’s really the evening – 7:00pm – but I could not resist the post title. Most of you won’t know (let me know if you do) what I’m playing with in the title, but that’s ok. I’m really, really pleased with it.
Amazingly, we have a free concert tomorrow here at USC with an introduction by the composer Steve Reich. Here is the weblink with complete information. Here’s an extract of the heaps of gushing remarks collected together to encourage you to go:
As part of a citywide festival celebrating his 70th birthday, Reich himself introduces a concert of his music played by three USC ensembles.
Widely regarded as one of the major “minimalists,” Steve Reich has composed music with a profound impact on art, film and popular music in the 20th century. He was recently called “…America’s greatest living composer,” (The Village Voice), “…the most original musical thinker of our time” (The New Yorker) and “…among the great composers of the century” (The New York Times). From his early taped-speech pieces, It’s Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966), to his and video artist Beryl Korot’s digital-video opera Three Tales (2002), Reich’s path has embraced not only aspects of Western classical music, but the structures, harmonies and rhythms of non-Western and American vernacular music, particularly jazz. “There’s just a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history and Steve Reich is one of them,” states The Guardian (London).
You get the idea. Various ensembles of musicians from USC’s Thornton School of Music will be performing some of his compositions. It should be a great evening indeed. This is certainly potentially one of the highlights of the year’s Visions and Voices program.
See you there perhaps?
-cvj
Steve Wright in the afternoon – roll back the years!!!! It was all in such good taste!!!
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Yes! I like Steve Wright’s comedy too.
Cheers,
-cvj
The diversity of your musical tastes and interests are quite wonderful. Reich has been a fav of mine for several decades; in the early 70’s he would show up as a visiting professor at CalArts and many of us would race out there to attend a lecture or an evening’s performance. His drumming/percussion pieces of that period were particularly inspiring for me, and for my friends who matriculated through CalArts, UCLA, and USC to play in small jazz combos, large orchestras, and rock bands.
And i second David’s mention of Steven Wright– he talks so slow and deliberate, baiting you to stop paying attention so he can slip the punch line right past you. One i always liked was about changing the radio in his car, he didn’t like the stations it played, those damned wires were such a pain to get straight, but he didn’t understand why all the people were honking at him on the Santa Monica freeway?
There’s another steve wright in america who’s actually funny. He does physics jokes. (But they’re not his best).
I was in a job interview and I opened a book and started reading. Then I said to the guy, “Let me ask you a question. If you are in a spaceship that is traveling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, does anything happen?” He said, “I don’t know.” I said, “I don’t want your job.” —- Steven Wright
I draw the line at Mike Reed. Well, actually, I draw it at Steve Wright, but I did a lot of my growing up in the 80s. Yes, England. Some of it stuck.
-cvj
Steve Wright in the afternoon; a pun on Mike Reed, Mike Reed 275 and 285 next? You can take a chap out of England, but never England out of the chap.