Composer John Luther Adams is known not only for his compositions that summon and embody the vistas of his home in Alaska, but for his tireless activism and interest in environmental causes and his passion for creating sound spaces that evoke a sense of “vastness, separateness and solitude.” (–Alex Ross)

On April 22, 2011, Great Noise Ensemble and The Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring present a program in celebration of Earth Day, featuring John Luther Adams’s Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing. Adams describes the work as “a work of musical contemplation, an attempt to consecrate a small time and space for extraordinary listening (…) My hope has been not so much to compose a piece of music as to create — in essentially musical terms, with no external references — a wholeness of music, a sonic presence somehow equivalent to that of a vast landscape.”

For this performance Great Noise Ensemble is hosted by the Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring, participants in the Green Sanctuary program of the Unitarian Universalist Association, who are “dedicated, through individual and collective efforts, to becoming better stewards of the Earth”. Visit www.uucss.org to learn more about UUCSS and www.uua.org to learn about Unitarian Universalism and the Green Sanctuary initiative.

Tickets are available online at www.greatnoiseensemble.com and at the door: $15 General Admission, $10 Students/Seniors.

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About Great Noise Ensemble: Great Noise Ensemble was born in 2005 through a listing placed on Craigslist.org by composer and conductor Armando Bayolo. Seven area musicians united by their passion for new music answered, and from this core group the ensemble has grown into the twenty instrumentalists and two singers which now comprise its core membership. Since its first concert in January 2006, Great Noise Ensemble has become one of the most important ensembles in the District of Columbia’s burgeoning new music scene, winning The Washington Area Music Association’s 2007 “WAMMIE” Award for Best Chamber Ensemble and presenting concerts in venues ranging from intimate community concert spaces like the Patricia M. Sitar Center to prestigious locales such as the National Gallery of Art, the Hirshhorn Gallery and Sculpture Garden and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

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Links:
WEB: Great Noise Ensemble & The Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring Celebrate Earth Day
PDF: Great Noise Ensemble & The Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring Celebrate Earth Day

Go to a concert of the classics and you commit yourself, at least for a couple of hours, to the special but removed world where great music resides. Those who went to the Great Noise Ensemble’s concert at Catholic University’s Ward Hall on Friday, however, were brought face to face with music as life.

…the music was put out there with enormous exuberance and good humor, all tempered by moments of delicacy and restraint.

–Joan Reinthaler, The Washington Post

To read the full review, click here.

Like most garage bands, alt-classical groups have to make the most of limited resources. “A lot of the vibe we’ve developed,” says Bayolo of the Great Noise Ensemble, “is that we’ve been forced to work in a tough economy with very little money, as what I call guerrilla music makers.” The ensemble’s musicians are still working without pay, though the question of performance space has been solved since the group took up residency at Catholic University. (Their next concert is Oct. 30.)

The residency is appropriate in that Bayolo specifically cites the catholicism — with a small C — of his musical tastes. All music, to this young composer, is created equal, but the established format is too restrictive. “The notion of music as religious relic is what I’m trying to fight against,” he said.

Read the full article here.

This is modern composed music at its best; nimble, expressive, ear-turning and strange in an accessible way, highly virtuosic (7/4 time, anyone?) but never pretentious.
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If the idea of avant-garde music (referred to by the Ensemble simply as ‘contemporary music’), or even 7/4 time, frighten you, consider this a chance to dip your toes in; you might find that it can match pop music for emotiveness, ambient techno for fragility, R&B for sheer fun. Even the performers are a joy to watch; the young ensemble is focused and clearly enjoying themselves.

–Brett Abelman (Washington City Paper)

To see the full review, click here.

Fringe ain’t just theatre, folks. And things that fall into ‘ain’t theatre’ sure can appeal to the theatre folks, as Great Noise Ensemble’s Carnal Node now running at the Harman Center proves.
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Basically, what we have on our hands is great satisfyingly cerebral stuff with a funky and appealing technique to back it on up. A solid foray into contemporary bands in DC. If you see them playing somewhere, they’re worth a gander.

–Danielle Martin (DC Theatre Scene)