Terry Riley celebrates
the 45th anniversary of his groundbreaking composition,
In C. A major work in the history of
minimalist music, In C has an incredibly flexible
score and performance guidelines, which have inspired many musicians to make their own versions, including a
French guitar quintet, a
traditional Chinese orchestra, a
keyboard ensemble, an
all-synthesizer group,
CalArts Music students,
French-Canadian hippies, a
Danish vocal and percussion ensemble, another
percussion ensemble,
Japanese acidheads, a
"laptop orchestra", the
Bang on a Can Orchestra, and a
rock "orchestration" by the Styrenes. No two versions can sound exactly the same, but it's still an open question how they will compare to the performance of In C at its
Carnegie Hall debut next month. No recording of the original 1964 performance has ever been publicly released, but some eyewitness accounts can be found
here.
posted by jonp72
on Mar 4, 2009 -
40 comments
