In Monday’s (10/26) Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), Mike Dunham writes, “The Anchorage Symphony Orchestra opened its season with a concert that included only the third American performance of a curious work for percussion and orchestra. ‘Spices, Perfumes, Toxins,’ was created by contemporary Israeli composer Avner Dorman as a showpiece for the duo of Tomer Yariv and Adi Morag, aka PercaDu. The three-movement piece is notably ‘accessible’—to use the code word for modern music that numbers of listeners will find more entertaining than perplexing. The piece begins with a persistent motor rhythm on two marimbas, which are the most prominent instruments in the score. … Aside from an episode of dueling drum sets, the marimbas dominate the first movement, ‘Spices’; each movement supposedly represents one of the nouns in the title. … ‘Perfumes’ has an altogether lovely feel, with delicious triplets and a meditative fade at the end. ‘Toxins’ served mainly as a format for virtuosity, featuring more drums and cymbals in a chain of excited flurries.” The other works on the program, led by Randall Craig Fleischer, were Verdi’s Overture to I Vespri Siciliani and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony.
Posted October 26, 2009
