“The Albany Symphony Orchestra gave a groundbreaking concert Sunday afternoon at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall,” writes Geraldine Freedman in Tuesday’s (3/4) Daily Gazette (Schenectady, N.Y.). “Not only was the program unusual for its choices, but there were two world premieres and, for the first time, the orchestra recorded the concert live.… Music director David Alan Miller told the near-capacity crowd that the recording was for a Joan Tower disc, one of three planned (the others are for George Tsontakis and Christopher Rouse) that will spotlight music by living composers. That’s unusual, said Tower, whose work ‘Still/Rapids’ with pianist Blair McMillen … [was] performed.… ‘Still’ was Debussy-an, with atmospheric jazz harmonies and pastel colors drawing a blue sky, still lake, and pretty rippling arpeggios in the piano. ‘Rapids’ … was fast, loud and hard-edged with tone clusters, cascading lines, syncopated rhythms, and lots of very fast scales…. McMillen nailed it all.” The second world premiere, Conor Brown’s “Bablook: Planet of Hands,” incorporated “Eastern European scales and rhythms, undulating motifs under soaring strings, multi-meters that Miller conducted with great clarity, inner lush melodies and watery-sounding moments with a solo xylophone followed by machine-like propulsive motifs were all played with much skill and intensity.”
Posted March 6, 2014
