Tuesday (12/20) on the NPR blog Deceptive Cadence, Tom Huizenga writes, “Having the right music director can make a huge difference for an orchestra. Take the young conductor Edwin Outwater and his Kitchener Waterloo Symphony, a modestly sized 65-year-old ensemble situated about an hour’s drive west of Toronto. You won’t find any Beethoven or Brahms on their new CD From Here On Out. Instead, it’s fresh music from the 40-and-under crowd, including the prolific Nico Muhly, Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood and Arcade Fire member Richard Reed Parry. The album is titled after the opening piece, which Muhly wrote for the American Ballet Theatre. … This music pulses out of the gate with a solo violin engulfed in warm strings and brass. … There are more interlocking parts for winds and percussion throbbing ecstatically in Muhly’s atmospheric Wish You Were Here, a Boston Pops commission that pays homage to Canadian-born American composer and musicologist Colin McPhee, a devotee of Balinese gamelan music. Outwater also supports the Canadian cause with an intriguing piece by Parry, a multi-instrumentalist from the Montreal-based band Arcade Fire. For Heart, Breath and Orchestra derives its pulse from the musicians themselves. The KWS players strap on stethoscopes to keep time with their own heartbeats.”
Posted December 22, 2011
