Michael Gordon’s music merges subtle rhythmic invention with incredible power embodying, in the words of The New Yorker‘s Alex Ross, “the fury of punk rock, the nervous brilliance of free jazz and the intransigence of classical modernism.”
Over the past 30 years, Gordon has produced a strikingly diverse body of work, ranging from large-scale pieces for high-energy ensembles to major orchestral commissions to works conceived specifically for the recording studio…
continue readingOn November 14 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the percussionists of the San Francisco Contemporary Players perform Michael Gordon’s acclaimed, hypnotic, epic concert-length work Timber for 6 percussionists.
Scored for six graduated, amplified, wooden simantras (2x4s) the work brings the physicality, endurance and technique of percussion performance to a new level. In this work, Gordon shapes the music in both polyrhythmic and dynamic waves of textures — often each players’ hands are in separate rhythmic ‘worlds’, each traversing a different dynamic contour from loud to soft to loud, similar in some respects to his solo for percussion, XY…
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NYT Review: A B-Movie Starlet Becomes an Opera Diva in ‘Acquanetta’
By Seth Colter Walls
January 10, 2018
A large screen looms over the stage. Projected onto it is a black-and-white close-up on an eyeball, fluttering in a state of nervous distress.
An overture, powered by distorted electric guitar and staccato strings, accompanies this sooty B-movie-style image. A choir grasps toward high-pitched wails…
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