LONDON SINFONIETTA & JONNY GREENWOOD: STEVE REICH
LONDON SINFONIETTA & JONNY GREENWOOD: STEVE REICH at Royal Festival Hall, London
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LONDON SINFONIETTA & JONNY GREENWOOD: STEVE REICH £22.00
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About the show
From Electric Counterpoint to City Life
Step into the shimmering soundworld of the architect of minimalism, US composer Steve Reich, with the London Sinfonietta and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood.
It’s hard to resist the pull of Reich’s music: bright, propulsive rhythms that slip and shift, opening out into glowing harmony. Just days before his 90th birthday, the London Sinfonietta and Jonny Greenwood perform works that have shaped their world.
Written especially for the ensemble, Radio Rewrite sees Reich reimagine two songs by Radiohead, refracted through his unmistakable rhythmic lens.
After joining the ensemble for Pulse, Jonny Greenwood plays Electric Counterpoint, in which a lone electric guitar weaves itself into a maze of lines, splintering and recombining in hypnotic motion.
And City Life captures the pulse of Reich’s home city, New York – a collage of street sounds, voices and machinery, alive with constant movement.
I love the impermanence of the music live: it’s played in the room – which is itself infinitely variable from one concert to another – and then it’s gone, soaked into the walls - Jonny Greenwood
This event is produced by London Sinfonietta. The work of the London Sinfonietta is supported using public funding by Arts Council England.
This concert is kindly supported by the Garfield Weston Foundation and the John Ellerman Foundation.
Featuring - London Sinfonietta
The London Sinfonietta is one of the world’s elite contemporary music ensembles with a reputation built on the virtuosity of its performances and ambitious programming. It is committed to placing new music at the heart of contemporary culture and pushing boundaries; the ensemble regularly undertakes projects with choreographers, video artists, film-makers and collaborations with electronica artists, jazz and folk musicians.
Jonny Greenwood
Jonny Greenwood is best known as the lead guitarist of Radiohead. Of late, he has made a move into classical music and has composed soundtracks for films including There Will Be Blood, We Need To Talk About Kevin and The Master.
Steve Reich
Reich is known as one of the pioneers of minimalism, although he sometimes deviates from a purely minimalist style. Ideas Reich have developed include using tape loops to create phasing patterns (such as in his first works, It's Gonna Rain, Come Out, Drumming); and using processes to create and explore musical concepts (Pendulum Music, Four Organs). These compositions, marked by their use of repetitive figures and phasing effects, have been a major influence in contemporary American music as well as contemporary music as a whole; The Guardian has described Reich as one of the few composers to have "altered the direction of musical history".