ATX PostEighth Blackbird brings atonal nirvana to Texas Performing Arts with residency
On Monday, February 4, the walls of McCullough Theatre are going to be shattered by sprechstimme.
Coming off of the success of its second Grammy award for 2012′s Steve Mackey’s Lonely Motel: Music from Slide, rockstar contemporary classical chamber ensemble, Eighth Blackbird, is blessing the glorious city of Austin with a 10-day residency, courtesy of the Texas Performing Arts’ classical music initiative, Fusebox Festival and the Butler School of Music.
“We will be all over the map: playing, talking, teaching, running about town like chickens with no heads,” says Eighth Blackbird flutist Tim Munro. “Which is fine by us, because we are all huge fans of the city and its amazing cultural life.”
The residency is book-ended by two very different — but very sexy — concerts. The first show on Monday, January 28, Shifted During Flight is as Tim describes, “a rambunctious, wildly diverse grab-bag of all that modern classical music has to offer: influences from indie rock, Bulgarian folk music, French Impressionism, minimalism and even mathematics.”
The show will feature works by very contemporary composers Nico Muhly, Philip Glass, Tom Johnson, Aaron Jay Kernis, Derek Bermel, Gyorgy Ligeti and Andy Akiho.
The second concert on Monday, February 4 is kind of a big deal. Perhaps the biggest of deals. Eighth Blackbird is a chamber ensemble comprised of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion and piano. Such an ensemble is commonly called a Pierrot ensemble, an instrumentation which was popularized by Arnold Schoenberg’s seminal atonal song cycle, Pierrot Lunaire. Well folks, this year marks the 100 anniversary { ...to continue reading this article: Article source: }
Article source: http://austin.culturemap.com/newsdetail/01-27-13-01-37-eighth-blackbird-brings-twelve-tone-nirvana-to-texas-performing-arts/