In Friday’s (2/13) Ottawa Citizen (Canada), Peter Robb previews a new series of concerts by musicians from Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra that launched on Valentine’s Day at Ottawa’s Mercury Lounge, “where some normally upright classically trained players … mingle with the drag queens and the EDM ravers. There will be three WolfGANG Sessions over the next few months that will have violinists, cellists and the like, backed by a DJ and videos, playing contemporary music with some real edge. It sounds very similar to a project launched by the incoming music director of the NACO, Alexander Shelley, when he was a young performer in Germany. The menu for the first session includes some young and very talented [NACO] players…. The music they are playing features works by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Magnus Lindberg, Ana Sokolovic and … the American Ryan Lott, who is better known as Son Lux … known for his post-rock and alternative hip-hop style,” who scored the films Looper and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby. “His work, Beautiful Mechanical, which was written for the ensemble yMusic … will be featured on Saturday night. It is a track that is full of urgency, starting with a hard-driving cello.”
Posted February 18, 2015
