Colin Currie, Colin Currie Group, Synergy Vocals – Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:04:03 minutes | 1,14 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Colin Currie Records
Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, completed in 1976, is well represented on recordings, including in two versions by Reich himself. Yet there is always room for as fine a performance as this. An examination of a random page in the score for the Music for 18 Musicians might give the impression that it is technically unchallenging, but this is emphatically not true. Percussionist Colin Currie, who leads his Colin Currie Group on this self-released album, has a fortunate metaphor for the work: it is, in his words, “the perfect musical beehive,” and the awesomely complex interactions between its parts are the responsibility of the players. Another way to look at the work is that, despite its large ensemble, it is chamber music, and it demands the rare ability to interact as a string quartet might. The group here delivers impressive results in music that manages to remain lively even as it is precise and transparent; Reich’s chord inversions are clearly audible as they develop and as singers are added to the mix in the persons of the four members of Synergy Vocals (who have worked with Reich before), they are magical. Engineering hounds whom one might quiz about the recording location might fail to identify the Abbey Road Studios in London, but this turns out to be an ideal venue. Those who haven’t heard Reich’s masterpiece for a while are encouraged to check this new version out. – James Manheim
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International Contemporary Ensemble & Colin Currie Group – Steve Reich: Pulse / Quartet (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 31:03 minutes | 534 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Nonesuch
Steve Reich’s Pulse / Quartet is performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). An artist collective committed to transforming the way music is created and experienced—and Quartet (2013) is played by the Colin Currie Group, an ensemble led by percussionist Colin Currie that specializes in the music of Steve Reich; these are also the ensembles that gave the world premiere performances of the respective works.
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Colin Currie Group – Steve Reich: Drumming (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 55:09 minutes | 929 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Colin Currie Records
The pioneering classical percussionist Colin Currie launches his own record label with a recording of Steve Reich’s iconic Drumming, performed by the Colin Currie Group and released in March 2018. Colin Currie Records is a platform for the soloist’s diverse projects, celebrating the extraordinary developments for percussion music over the past century.
Drumming was the piece which launched the Colin Currie Group, a virtuoso ensemble of musicians hand-picked by Currie.
Formed in 2006 for a performance at the BBC Proms celebrating the 70th birthday of Steve Reich, the group specialises in the American composer’s work. This recording was made possible by a crowd-funding campaign, which Reich enthusiastically endorsed, saying “It will be, I am sure, the best recording of Drumming ever made!”
Dating from 1971, Drumming is an epic work for nine percussionists, two vocalists and a piccolo player, and employs Reich’s trademark phasing technique. Over four connected parts, the composer explores different instrument groups, first focusing on bongo drums, then marimbas and glockenspiels before the complete ensemble come together for the piece’s climax.
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