Steve Reich Celebration at UUCSS
Great Noise Ensemble to honor American Composer Steve Reich at Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring
Concert: October 7, 2006, 8:00pm
Service: October 8, 2006, 10:30am
From: Michael Holmes, Music Director, Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring
The Sunday service on October 8th will be led by Michael Holmes, Music Director at UUCSS. It will honor the 70th birthday of Jewish-American composer Steve Reich, called “America’s greatest living composer” (The Village Voice), “the most original music thinker of our time” (The New Yorker), and “among the great composers of the [20th] century” (New York Times). Reich’s compositional principles, sometimes labeled ‘minimalist’, can send the listener through a timeless evolving spiritual process through gradual changes in rhythm, melody and texture. The music can represent metaphorically the growth and life cycles such as samsara in Hinduism, punarbhava in Buddhism, or rebirth and resurrection in some religions in the West. More specifically and perhaps more relevant to Westerners would be the kind of personal spiritual evolutions and struggles that Hermann Hesse explored in his parable Siddhartha. Michael Holmes invites you to probe into the mechanics of this hypnotic and mysterious music, that which has no apparent beginning, middle, or end.
The service will feature part of the sixteen-member Great Noise Ensemble from Washington D.C., who also will give their own special concert at UUCSS on Saturday, October 7th at 8:00pm. The program consists solely of music by Steve Reich, including “Music for Pieces of Wood” for six claves, “Electric Counterpoint”, written for one electric guitar player simultaneously with several pre-recorded tracks, and “Tehillim” ["Psalms"] for four sopranos, woodwinds, percussion, and electric organs. General admission for the concert is $20, and a special $10 rate has been arranged for UUCSS members, senior and students. Visit the ensemble’s website at http://www.greatnoiseensemble.com/. For further information, please contact Michael Holmes at holmesms@msn.com or 703-897-8990. This concert will be a very rare opportunity to experience this subtle and exquisite music live. Don’t miss this opportunity!