Los Angeles Times
June 16, 2009

By Mark Swed

Although we never really know where music is headed, sometimes we think we do. This is one of those times. The Chicago-based new music sextet eighth blackbird took over this year's Ojai Music Festival in Libbey Bowl for four days and packed it full with more and more varied music (and music theater) than ever before in the quirky, famous festival's 63-year history. The players, in their early 30s, are musical omnivores, convinced that nearly anything goes and goes together. A non-stop series of concerts, demonstrations, a symposium and a film screening that began last Thursday night and concluded with a five-hour marathon Sunday was not always convincing. But with these blackbirds singing morning, noon and in the dead of night, horizons could not but expand. Formed in 1996 by students at Oberlin College, the blackbirds are examples of a new breed of super-musicians. They perform the bulk of their new music from memory. They have no need of a conductor, no matter how complex the rhythms or balances. They are, as Juilliard Dean Ara Guzelimian said at the festival symposium Friday, "stage animals," often in motion, enacting their scores as they play them. They are without stylistic allegiances. Minimalism, post-minimalism, experimentalism, new romanticism, old expressionism, rock, smooth jazz, not-so-smooth jazz—all come easily and naturally. They brought to Ojai several of their like-minded, and in some astonishing instances, similarly multi-tasking, multi-talented friends. In addition, resident at Ojai this year were three barrier-breaking artists interesting enough to be subjects of their own festivals. Trimpin is often called a mad genius, because that's a lot easier than describing the way his startling mind works as he assembles toys, junk and what-not into fantastical, joyously interactive sonic installations that sweep the observer/participant into states of sonic wonderment. His Sheng High in Libbey Park translated the images of a martini and other unlikely things into the sounds of an otherworldly underwater organ. The fine, funny new documentary, Trimpin: The Sound of Invention, which was screened Saturday, proved a marvelous mood enhancer. Jeremy Denk—a young American pianist who also happens to have a background in chemistry and who also happens to be a gifted writer (his blog, Think Denk, is marvelous) with a deep and original musical mind—was another hero of the festival. If he had done nothing more than rescue Ives' First Piano Sonata from obscurity, which he did in his glorious Saturday morning recital, I would say the weekend would have been worthwhile. The third resident genius was the curious singer, actor Rinde Eckert. He was, along with composer Steven Mackey, the co-creator, and central figure in the centerpiece of the festival, Slide, which received its world premiere on Friday night. Slide, in many ways, epitomized the kind of new musical world that eighth blackbird is ushering us into. Like most at Ojai this year, Mackey is more than one kind of musician. He is an electric guitarist and his music is influenced by rock and jazz. He is a Princeton music professor, and his music equally includes subtle metric shifts and rhythmic intricacies found in sophisticated contemporary classical music. He doesn't completely manage the merger of raw rock and cooked classicism in Slide, but the stylistic sliding is nonetheless powerful and impressive. Unfortunately, he saddled himself with a sophomoric theatrical concept—a lonely psychologist who studies how people interpret images seen in and out of focus. This mirrors his own soft-focus life. The show, which was directed by Eckert, is an elaboration of a series of elliptical songs. At 80 minutes, Slide slipped a lot and will surely have significant refinement as the blackbirds begin to tour it. Mackey wailed away on his guitar and served as effective narrator. Eckert enacted a sad-sack who could boogie. The blackbirds brought their irresistible élan. Mackey was born in 1956, so the blackbirds can't be accused of age discrimination, but I was particularly struck by how many of the major works they chose were written by composers in their 30s. Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire was one, and it was given an elaborate staging Saturday night by choreographer Mark DeChiazza. Five of the blackbirds—pianist Lisa Kaplan, violinist and violist Matt Albert, cellist Nicholas Photinos, clarinetist Michael J. Maccaferri and flutist Tim Munro—played from memory while assuming both meaningful and meaningless poses around soprano Lucy Shelton. Percussionist Matthew Duvall, who is given no part by Schoenberg, enacted Pierrot and a dancer, Elyssa Dole, added further extraneous activity. The intense interaction of the players and Shelton turned this performance into a genuinely new way of looking at a 20th century musical icon. But all the rest made it a pointless Pierrot. Ives was an exact contemporary of Schoenberg, and his First Sonata was roughly contemporary with Pierrot. Steve Reich was in his late 30s as well when he wrote his groundbreaking Music For 18 Instruments in 1976. The blackbirds, with a lot of help from their friends, put together a winning performance of the hour-long piece in a couple of rehearsals for our Sunday morning wake-up call. Pierrot was preceded on Saturday night by a recent work by yet another thirtysomething, David Michael Gordon. His Quasi Sinfonia for 16 musicians goes to town with 19th century musical hymns, which the composer said in his program note suited his evangelical Christianity. Gordon uses a lot of percussion and by the end I felt as though he wanted to smash the hymns down a listener's throat. But his harmonic skill is formidable and, for all his gimmickry, he writes strong, disturbing music. Programming contrasts such as Gordon with Schoenberg were common all weekend. Denk paired Ives' hard-edged sonata, which also uses 19th century hymn tunes, with Bach's celestial "Goldberg" Variations. Tin Hat, a four-member ensemble, played light jazz before Slide. This new contrasting aesthetic suggests a clicker mentality but without the short attention span. Concentrating hard and long on one thing, then moving on to the next, unrelated thing becomes the new way of paying attention. I was ready to dismiss Tin Hat as pleasant brunch stuff until I heard what these players could do in other contexts. Most impressive was the violinist and soprano Carla Kihlstedt. She is a really good violinist and a really good soprano at the same time, and her solo performance of Lisa Bielawa's haunting Kafka Songs on Sunday was memorable, and all the more so for her achieving it in a late stage of pregnancy. There were many highlights. Stephen Hartke's Meanwhile had the blackbirds entering into the world of Asian puppet theater. Nathan Davis' Sounder included remote-controlled nutty percussion hanging from a nearby tree, courtesy of Trimpin. QNG, a quartet of four German recorder players, chirped alluringly in music new and ancient. Steve Reich's Double Sextet, winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize in music, was given full-out with 12 players (eighth blackbird performed it last year in Orange County against a recording of itself). Louis Andriessen's Workers Union—written in 1975 and another ground-breaking piece by a composer in his 30s—ended Sunday's five-hour marathon with all the festival participants magnificently banging away. John Cage once said, anything goes, but that doesn't mean you can do anything you want. Eighth blackbird does anything it wants, and gets away with it much of the time. I think greatness for this ensemble will come when it learns a little more discrimination and when it works more with top theater artists. Still, blackbirds loosened on Ojai last weekend are unquestionably birds of bright promise. Next year the British composer George Benjamin will be music director.

Sequenza21
June 15, 2009

By Jerry Zinser

The Ojai Music Festival came to a triumphal ending last night with a raucous, committed, glowing performance of Louis Andriessen's Worker’s Union (1976). The performance of the Andriessen began four-and-a-half hours after the start of the Sunday evening concert. The six musicians of eighth blackbird came on stage and played two or three iterations. Then one of the other musicians of the evening came on stage from the wings and joined in. Then another. Then two more. Then four more came through the audience. Then more. Almost three dozen playing and joining in Workers Union, including Tom Morris, the Festival's Music Director, on percussion. We in the audience wanted to join in the joyous noise; it wasn't enough to just yell out our approval, we needed to join in at the end of a long day and a great festival. It's a shame that the musicians didn't go back into the audience to let us join in. Saturday night's concert ranks up there close to Salonen and the Finns or to Dawn Upshaw in Berio and Golijov as the very best events from Ojai. To start was Quasi Sinfonia by David Michael Gordon (2008), a wild, woolly, noisy, charming chamber symphony for 16 musicians (the blackbirds and 10 friends). This was performed without conductor, no small feat in itself for a festival ensemble, but even more accomplished for a work that occasionally seems to change meter with each measure. (blackbird cellist Nick Photinos must have strong neck muscles; his time-keeping through head motions seemed more effective in maintaining the beat for the ensemble than many conductors can achieve with their arms and a baton. His beat made it easier for me to follow what Gordon was doing, I know.) Think of a toy-derived, non-traditional instrument: Gordon came close to finding a way to use it in the work. This was fun; riotous, but fun. And then... The blackbirds plus Lucy Shelton plus dancer/costumer Elyssa Dole performed Pierrot Lunaire in what was the best of five versions I’ve seen. (Yes, better than that done by the WDCH house ensemble. Sorry, E-P.) Sometimes the movements and stage bits that the blackbirds like in performance seem to detract from my hearing the music; sometimes their stage business seems to me like busyness. But not here. Their shifting ensembles helped make clear the music's shifts of resources and colors. Lucy Shelton offered a just-right blend of "low art" (cabaret) with the high art of the formal salon. Matthew Duvall, the eighth's percussionist, was a perfect Pierrot in his ice-cream-suit and bow tie. This was a model performance. (I think that people do a dis-service to this work by trying to add a storyline. I wish they could accept the work for what it is, instead of trying to make it more "important" with a story. This performance gave us a non-story line, a series of memory fragments, and it certainly worked for me.) Sunday morning's concert was Music for 18 Musicians (yes, Reich, of course), performed by the blackbirds and 13 friends. (The performance used an extra person; I think this was to provide some rotational relief.) I was glad to hear it, but where I was sitting (too close) the volume from the pulse strokes absolutely dominated the sound. The balances were off; some voices were missing. I felt we needed Reich to re-set and focus the audio system. However, I should point out that I was in a small minority in this opinion. Others around me had no problem. So perhaps it was the way those notes reverberated in my skull... Perhaps. And then the evening concert began at 4, opening with Reich's Pulitzer-winning Double Sextet played by the blackbirds and six friends, with the 'birds dividing themselves equally between the two units. For this performance the musicians just stood and played, with no choreography. I appreciated it. The pairing of this work with 18 Musicians was perfect, for both pieces. Clearly, Double Sextet is something that must be added to our libraries. We then had ten sets, divided into three segments, of friends plus blackbirds. When Mark Swed publishes his review, probably tomorrow, I'll add a link so that you can read the professional's comments. For me, however, here are a few vivid memories. First, Carla Kihlstedt gave a solo performance, singing and on the violin, of seven songs by Lisa Bielawa, a composer new to me. This was a work of art. Having seen the Upshaw/Sellars production of Kurtag's Kaftka Fragments, I assert that the Kihlstedt/Bielawa arrangement deserves a degree of comparison. The next vivid recollection is of the "recorder" ensemble QNG performing a set of three pieces, in which a Taverner extract was sandwiched between two contemporary works. The four musicians in the group are enormously talented, and they use a range of instruments, including contemporary "recorders" that have a square cross-section and flapper valves, giving some delightful partials that you haven't heard before. I enjoyed the two works by Steven Hartke. Jeremy Denk accompanied Lucy Shelton in recording-worthy performances of seven Stravinsky songs. Amy Briggs gave knuckle-busting performances of four piano etudes by David Rakowski. I'm doing a dis-service to the others by not mentioning them. This was a great evening, even though it was a bit of a smorgasbord, and Workers Union was a grand conclusion. Next year's Music Director will be composer George Benjamin.

Daniel Stephen Johnson's Weblog
June 14, 2009

So here's what happened: My brother had a piece premiered by the orchestra we were in in high school, the wonderful Claremont Young Musicians Orchestra, so my dad offered to fly me out to hear it. Well so, then I got a twitter from Ojai saying I should come out for for the festival, and so yeah, why not come out to CA for two weeks instead of one? Well, while I might've been happy to spend the whole four days listening to new music and stalking bearinetists, my brother was pretty much up for just two days of Ojaiing—but long story short, here I am, at a motel in Camarillo, embloggening yesterday morning's performance by Jeremy Denk. "God, that lady looked so familiar," my brother said after we picked up our tickets from the (extremely helpful) box office staff; well, then he realized that the same lady who was doing their Twitter feed and working in their box office had also been in his 20th-century opera class in grad school, so when we ran in to her again he got to freak her the heck out by remembering her from a music theory seminar they'd taken together on the East Coast like a decade ago. I saw hardly anybody I recognized: the Mac (of course) and his fellow blackbirds, the Meehan/Perkins duo (was very sorry to miss their performance Thursday), new-music publicist extraordinaire Stephen Swartz, Donald Crockett (one of bro's old teachers), and sitting not too far away from us, Frank Gehry! I asked him to sign a sheet of titanium for us. Ha ha ha ha, I've been making that joke all day. The crowd was surprisingly old for a new music festival; I'm used to the Brooklyn Vegan-looking crowd at the Bang on a Can marathon. It's nice to have a reminder once in a while that old people can be AWESOME. Those are the subscribers! said the Mac over Mexican. You know how "subscribers" is usually code for everything that's wrong with a musical institution? ("Oh, we can't do a new opera every season, the subscribers would flip.") Well let's us new music people put our ageism on dry ice for one minute and take a look at this fantastic Ojai crowd. Hip, adventurous, good-looking, gray. ANYWAY... "What did you think?" brother Dave said after that evening's performance of Quasi Sinfonia by David Gordon, for eighth blackbird plus additional players. "I'm glad he wrote that instead of going on a shooting spree," I said. I kid! But it was pretty intense. It started off with the ensemble's polyrhythmically multilayered imitation of a convoy of car alarms, then pushed relentlessly forward through four movements, all of them focused on the texturally dense exploration of obsessively limited materials. I was pleased. I think I have to go hear more D.M. Gordon now. So. "I've heard three pieces today, and I think that's the third one to include a super-gnarly hymntune quodlibet," I said. "Yeah, well, I don't think we're gonna go four for four," said Dave. That would be correct. Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire is plenty gnarly, but decidedly profane: alas, A.S. forgot to bring the hymntunes. And between Elyssa Dole's dancing, Mark Dechiazza's stark, mock-somber staging, and Lucy Shelton's sultry vocal performance, I felt like a character watching a concert within an Almodóvar movie. The dancing was elegant. The moving—I sometimes felt that the blackbirds projected too much stage presence; the less they "performed," the more convincing they were. The Duv, there being no drummin' in Pierrot, did put on an impressive dumbshow—his face was compelling, and I was very fond of a bit of business he did with his bowtie. But the playing was incredibly tight. The amplification on the fiddle was a little high, but the blend was excellent, and every individual performance was stellar as well. Musically, there was nothing lacking: Schoenberg's most oblique lines sang out all limpid and expressive, somehow without diminishing their mystery. It was utterly involving. Can I also mention that just the fact of a Pierrot Lunaire under the stars, complete with chirping frogs, was pretty excellent? Yeah, I'm going to give my thumbs-up. More soon.

Chicago Tribune
January 31, 2008

By Michael Cameron

New music troupe eighth blackbird released a superb Grammy-nominated disc in early 2006 for Cedille records, a landmark for both the Chicago label as well as the stellar sextet. Saturday at the Harris Music and Dance Theater, the ensemble reprised four of the works from Strange Imaginary Animals, with guest laptop artist Dennis DeSantis adding electronic embellishments to the original acoustic incarnations. The aesthetic links between works were even more noteworthy than Desantis' amendments. Most of the program sounded assembled more than formally composed. Peaks, valleys and melodies were sublimated in favor of rhythmic strata laid out in dizzying patterns of dynamics, colors and textures. Steven Mackey's Indigenous Instruments made a strong impression four years ago, but on this night more seemed less. DeSantis has an unerring ear for hue, but at times I missed the dry brittle astringency of the original. The most pleasant surprise came from a local newcomer, David M. Gordon. The composer has immersed himself in Asian gamelan music, mixing its percussive drive with serrated microtonal pulsations in Friction Systems. eighth blackbird was bound to cover Radiohead sooner or later. Cliff Colnot's arrangement of Dollars and Cents was succinct. DeSantis' solo electronic work strange imaginary remix was a gas, exuding a cool club vibe with a quasi-psychedelic hip-hop collection of loops minus vocals.

Chicago Tribune
January 31, 2008

By Michael Cameron

New music troupe eighth blackbird released a superb Grammy-nominated disc in early 2006 for Cedille records, a landmark for both the Chicago label as well as the stellar sextet. Saturday at the Harris Music and Dance Theater, the ensemble reprised four of the works from Strange Imaginary Animals, with guest laptop artist Dennis DeSantis adding electronic embellishments to the original acoustic incarnations. The aesthetic links between works were even more noteworthy than Desantis' amendments. Most of the program sounded assembled more than formally composed. Peaks, valleys and melodies were sublimated in favor of rhythmic strata laid out in dizzying patterns of dynamics, colors and textures. Steven Mackey's Indigenous Instruments made a strong impression four years ago, but on this night more seemed less. DeSantis has an unerring ear for hue, but at times I missed the dry brittle astringency of the original. The most pleasant surprise came from a local newcomer, David M. Gordon. The composer has immersed himself in Asian gamelan music, mixing its percussive drive with serrated microtonal pulsations in Friction Systems. eighth blackbird was bound to cover Radiohead sooner or later. Cliff Colnot's arrangement of Dollars and Cents was succinct. DeSantis' solo electronic work strange imaginary remix was a gas, exuding a cool club vibe with a quasi-psychedelic hip-hop collection of loops minus vocals.

Chicago Sun-Times
January 28, 2008

By Andrew Patner

The words "crossover" and "fusion" are perhaps the most frightening in the music descriptive lexicon. They indicate a self-conscious crossing of a barrier - from "classical" to "pop," say - or a marriage of things that just don't taste great together. Yet there are successful ways to bring different influences together. See, for example, the marvelous Chicago-based new music sextet eighth blackbird (the "birds," as their fans call them, don't capitalize their name). Saturday night at the Harris Theater, they presented one of the most organically realized evenings of music that took the best of several disciplines, discarded classifications and arrived at enchantment. Riding high with three classical Grammy nominations for their latest release, Strange Imaginary Animals, on Chicago's own Cedille Records, the 11-year-old ensemble riffed on the album for their second program in their first local series. Enlisting the assistance of composer/laptop mixer Dennis DeSantis, the group offered remixes, both subtle and dramatic, of five works from the album plus local arranger Cliff Colnot's adaptation of Radiohead's Dollars and Cents. The results at first questioned and then defied distinctions of acoustic and amplified, "natural" and electronic, composition and improvisation. New York-based DeSantis, 34, kicked things off with his own 2001 Powerless, a catchy four-part exercise in rhythmic energy inspired in both name and style by Stravinsky. The players, on flutes, clarinets, violin, cello, percussion and piano, blended well with their real-time on-stage remix. Canadian Gordon Fitzell's 2001/2004 evanasence made even fuller use of the live interactive electronic elements and was the first work to move toward a sort of 21st century trance sound. Colnot's arrangement is only the latest in an ongoing infatuation by current "classical" artists with Radiohead's multi-layered, referential pop. Colnot's version was wholly appealing, complete with sly highlights in the scoring and violinist Matt Albert doing a pretty good Thom Yorke with the chorus. Steve Mackey's 1989 Indigenous Instruments had the least need for a re-think, as its concept includes a scoring for acoustic instruments of rock sounds and techniques. But the 2002/2005 Friction Systems by University of Chicago graduate student David M. Gordon, 31, was astonishing in its blend of the composer's ideas and tight focus, the now-customary virtuosity of the players and De Santis' ability at making new aural universes. You wanted to get up and dance.

Fanfare
May/June, 2007

By Robert Carl

eighth blackbird is Molly Alicia Barth, flutes; Michael J. Maccaferri, clarinets; Matt Albert, violin and viola; Nicholas Photinos, cello; Lisa Kaplan, piano; Matthew Duvall, percussion. Their instrumentation is by now one of the enduring legacies of the 20th century, the "Pierrot sextet" (with percussion instead of voice). They are very much 21st century though, in that their manner of presentation is more as a "post-classical band" (in the wake of such as the Kronos Quartet), a delight in alternative modes of presentation, and interaction with technology. This disc highlights all of these, in particular the latter. Many of the works explore what is called extended techniques, ways of playing instruments not associated with the traditional repertoire. Steve Mackey's Indigenous Instruments (1989) is probably a masterpiece; by now it's established itself at least as that rare bird, a new-music repertoire item. The composer has stated that the piece is the result of his deliberate misreading of non-Western musics, and the result is a little like a world music that comes from Mars. Everything is acoustic, but between a lot of scordatura (retuned strings), quarter-tones, and assorted noises, a genuinely witty, playful, and strangely expressive music results. Jennifer Higdon's Zaka (2003) also pulls out all the bells and whistles, and it's fluent, fast, polished, and snappy. But despite such professionalism, I also found it rather empty by its end; I knew more about the composer's technique and will to write than I did about what she might need to say. The same cannot be said, happily, for Gordon Fitzell. A Canadian composer (I can't give you a birth date for any of these composers; more on that later), his music struck me as quietly intense and haunting. Distinguished by delicately sinister sounds is violence (2001)-the sound that stuck with me most is a tapping ascending glissando on the piano strings. His piece evanescence (2006) seems almost like a remix of the composer's earlier piece (for one thing, the piano glissando recurs), though it also seems to involve some sort of processing of the instruments (though whether that's live through some sort of interactive patch or pre-recorded, I can't say for sure). There also seems to be a subtle electro-acoustic component in David M. Gordon's Friction Systems (2002/05), but above all, the piece is about the way simple chant-like materials are texturally smeared and stretched, so as to create a thicker, more abrasive surface. The effect is like layered impasto on a painting. One hears echoes of both the Dies irae and gamelan scales. It's quite attractive, though it goes on a little too long for my taste. And finally, Dennis DeSantis's strange imaginary remix (2006) seems to be really the latter, with its drum machine beats and gated wind sounds. My assumption is that it consists of material written for the group, recorded, and then processed in the studio, though there may be a way to do it live (which I'm sure would be quite interesting). As these sorts of "classi-techno" hybrids go, this one is better than most. I found it dancy and rather savvy in its calculated growth, over a roughly six-minute arc. Which leads to one complaint. Readers will note that in my descriptions I'm guessing about a lot of aspects of the music. The reason is that there are very minimal program notes, and no composer or performer bios. One is referred to eighth blackbird's Web site, and once there I found the CD, but only for sale, with a couple of capsule reviews. In this way I fear the group is taking too many lessons from Bang on a Can and its Cantaloupe Records. I have no problem with having detailed information now online; saving paper and a tree is fine. But I know that there are legions of interested young composers and performers, not to mention new music fans, who would love to know something more about how the pieces were conceived and realized. One hopes that such are not trade secrets; let's think of it as open-source code rather than proprietary software. Rant over. The performances are superb, and obviously the players know and enjoy this music (eighth blackbird has the enviable reputation of performing its concert programs from memory, a testimony to their intense devotion to this repertoire). Sound is excellent too. The booklet has a series of charming illustrations of little morphing monsters by each of the composers, and Lisa Kaplan (for portraits of the players). Aside from my reservation above, a worthy release that shows off the group in their virtuosity and sense of adventure.

Gramophone
May, 2007

By Ken Smith

The new-music group eighth blackbird (the lower-case spelling apparently an ee cummings take on Wallace Stevens's "Thirteen Ways...") have clearly become one of the stars of contemporary composition. Like the Kronos Quartet, the Bang on a Can All-Stars or, more recently, the string quartet Ethel, they're among the few ensembles who remain instantly identifiable in whatever they're playing, almost like a rock band that's developed a distinctive sound and stuck with it. This is all the more remarkable given the range of the composers here and what they require in their music. Jennifer Higdon's Zaka (2003) is by turns rhythmically ear-catching and momentarily reflective. Gordon Fitzell's violence (2001), true to its title, offers edgier timbres, paving the way brilliantly for Steve Mackey's three movement Indigenous Instruments (1989), an evocative blanket of jagged rhythms and alternative tunings that the composer likens to "vernacular music from a culture that doesn't exist." The toy pianos, break drums and prepared keyboards of David M. Gordon's Friction Systems (2002, rev 2005), on the other hand, come from a culture that very much exists, namely New York's Downtown avant-garde. Much like their names, Gordon's piece segues smoothly into Fitzell's evanescence (2006), an equally fearless soundscape of timbres tempered with electronics. The techno bent continues with Dennis DeSantis' strange imaginary remix (2006), which culls sounds from the earlier pieces on the disc and spins them into a thoroughly satisfying ending. This collection is one of those rare programmes where the pieces come together into something larger than its parts. Surely the ensemble deserve the bulk of the credit, although other than Mackey's piece, which clearly predates the ensemble, I'm not sure how much the composers have taken the particular players themselves into account. However this disc came into play, let's hope that the forces involved remember how they did it.

American Record Guide
March/April, 2007

By Ian Quinn

The young Pierrot-plus-percussion ensemble eighth blackbird has released its fourth great disc in four years. These are mostly first recordings of pieces by young composers. (Mackey's piece, the exception, is 20 years old and has been recorded before, but he was at least young when he wrote it.) Like the band itself, all the music is fresh, vibrant, exciting and slightly addictive - a younger version of Bang on a Can. Among all of this great music, the clear standout is David M. Gordon's Friction Systems, a work of gritty, grinding passion and raw ritualism that draws on Ligeti and Lang but puts them in a blender that's all Gordon's own. And speaking of putting music in the blender, the group also deserves adulation for asking Dennis DeSantis, a dance-club DJ and a fine "straight" composer, to make a club-style remix of all the pieces on the program as a sort of envoi. (I think that I'd be just as wild about these pieces if Gordon weren't a former student of mine and DeSantis weren't a good graduate-school friend, but I'll disclose those relationships all the same.) I don't know what eighth blackbird has planned for the future, though they're circulating a video performance of Pierrot on You-Tube. Whatever comes next, their track record strongly suggests that it will be great.

MusicWeb International
February, 2007

By Dominy Clements

An exciting programme, the majority being world premiere recordings, and by an exceptional ensemble which specialises in contemporary music – what more do you want to get the juices flowing? Jennifer Higdon is one of the US's most performed living composers. Zaka is a colourful, energetic and rhythmically stimulating work in its outer sections. The quieter central moments are expressed in flowing lines and open fifths in the piano part – always a good way to work out some counterpoint without losing your audience. Gentle percussion effects and some massaging of the piano strings add a mildly exotic flavour, but this is music which has a clean and direct effect, having its feet firmly on solid, technically adept ground. With the title violence, Gordon Fitzell "was interested in exploring the concept of aesthetic violence... What elements conspire to wage aesthetic war in a work of art?" The music is therefore not of a 'violent' nature, but engages the listener in an exploration of sonorities, sustained pedal tones, the tapping of strings – rhythm and harmonics at the same time – melodic gestures rather than recognisable lines. The mind is stimulated to ask questions. Mine told me that the conflicts were partially of instruments being asked to imitate or express things other than that which might be expected of them, or taking on or arguing against musical stereotype. You will probably make other conclusions, but in doing so will be proving the success of Fitzell's idea. Indigenous Instruments is Steven Mackey's "vernacular music from a culture that doesn’t exist." De-tuned instruments give the opening movement some interesting quarter-tone effects, the notes becoming declamatory and vocal – like a noisy crowd of "strange imaginary animals." There is some humour in the writing, and some powerfully expressive moments as well. The piece is in three movements which run into each other, the first being animated – literally. The second movement is slow and atmospheric, solos rising above a bed of irregular sustained repeated or rocking notes from the piano. The other instruments eventually take over this organic cycle of resonance, allowing the piano to break free and embrace the now static notes of the ensemble in wreaths of wider intervals. It’s like a very slow chorale – a guaranteed hit with this reviewer. The third movement opens with grunting and fidgeting strings, who rut in the undergrowth while flute and piano occasionally fly overhead in haughty distaste. The conclusion is like gently bestial Tippett – beautiful, but remaining rhythmically unruly. Of the cryptic programme notes in the booklet to this CD, David M. Gordon's would seem to be the least informative – being a 'wordsearch' panel with the composer's name and the title Friction Systems highlighted. In fact, you can have all kinds of fun spotting words which are relevant to the piece: 'Prepared Piano' being just two, and very much a central element in the colour of the piece. After a hard-hitting opening, quarter-tone dissonances from strings and winds and gamelan-like sounds from the piano enhance a mystical, exotic character. 'Drama' is another word which one can spot in the grid, and there is indeed a theatrical quality to this piece, with tense build-ups and heavy gestures in the bass line. The prepared piano has an extended cadenza towards the end of the piece, the intensity of which builds to a climax via a reprise of the repeated notes of the opening, using some quarter-tone writing which reminded me a little of some of Alain Louvrier's music. Gordon Fitzell's other work on this disc, evanescence, introduces a nice electronic contrast with the other pieces, processing the sounds of the instruments to create an other-worldly, displaced feeling. The words 'violence, metamorphosis, sublimation, evanescence' are the sum total of the programme notes, but they do seem to illustrate what the piece is about in an ultra-compact fashion. It would have been nice to have been told how some of the effects were created – the impression being of a kind of 'remix' of violence. Nice vocorder nuances aside, the only thing I really missed was Ringo Starr's voice repeating the words 'number nine.' Dennis DeSantis' strange imaginary remix appropriately runs straight on from Fitzell's electronic work, and with DeSantis' groovy pedigree it is no real surprise to find this last track being a catchy and remarkably well put together assembly of edits from previous works on the disc. Flutey tongue-rams - sampled, otherwise the player would end up with a tongue the shape and size of a milk-bottle - serve as a pushy rhythmic basis along with some computer-generated but well-balanced drum effects, and the open piano sounds in Jennifer Higdon's central section wind through the latter stages in a slow, ever-evolving spiral. I shall be keeping this track handy for that silly dance I have to do when putting on formal dress for a gig – all sedentary musicians over forty will know what I’m talking about... This imaginative and superbly produced CD has some top contemporary music played by a crack ensemble, and has the essential quality of not taking itself too seriously. I give it the modern-music 'feel-good' award, and shall be recommending it to anyone prepared to listen to the ramblings of a strange imaginary reviewer.

MusicWeb International
January, 2007

By Rob Barnett

eighth blackbird have been playing together since 1996 and by their 'fruit' you know that they are a well integrated group. This grab-bag of modern pieces dating 1989-2006 reflects the vitality and variety embraced by this enterprising group of musicians. Jennifer Higdon's Zaka is a fantastic sprint full of irresistible Stravinskian energy and rhythmic drive. Gordon Fitzell's violence is more brusquely modern, with Pendereckian wails and shuddering tremors and sighs all encased in a shrouded dream of violence presented in a recording of stunning immediacy. Stephen Mackey's Indigenous Instruments is in three movements, where all the other pieces are in single spans. Mackey is closer to Fitzell than Higdon, but there is some of vital grammar to the piece which is dominated by fragmentation, reiteration of motifs and a panoply of Daliesque melting, as well as grumbling, rumbling and chittering. The second movement is more placid, rather than rattling with activity. The finale is engaging, with jazzy little interjections and hints of minimalist germs, as well as chants and chatters in Stravinskian echoes that find their origin in the Symphonies of Wind Instruments, but with cooler romantic streams casting benediction from Coplandesque pastures. David Gordon's Friction Systems, which starts and ends with the brawling of machines, melts centrally into a dark-realmed refraction of the Dies Irae. This is dark and fascinating stuff that is well worth hearing. Fitzell has the honour of a second piece. evanescence is alive with electronic contrivances and effects, as well as the 'natural voices' of the instruments. It ends with the emulation of an electronic alarm. Finally we have Strange Imaginary Remix by Dennis DeSantis, with clipped synthesised electronic sounds and samples, plunking, breathing, Hammond echoing and chiming in urgent patterns streaming across the page and the listener's attention. Parts of it sound funky; down and dirty. Modernistic stuff then, perhaps kicking against current trends towards tonality and legato melodics, but if this style is to your taste, the DeSantis, Higdon, Gordon and parts of the Mackey are especially well worth hearing.

New York Times
January 13, 2007

By Vivien Schweitzer

The Kitchen was where the wild things were on Thursday night. eighth blackbird, the new music sextet based in Chicago, offered an aural feast for the imagination with works from Strange Imaginary Animals, their new disc on the Cedille label. The title of this recording of visceral music was inspired by the composer Steven Mackey, who in his three-movement Indigenous Instruments (1989) instructed that the violin's G string be tuned down by more than an octave to sound "like the moaning of some strange imaginary animal." He uses microtonal tunings and unusual textures to create quirky folk melodies from an imagined culture. The whimsical CD title is also apt for the other works on the disc, like Jennifer Higdon's irresistibly fun and colorful Zaka (2003), which opened the program at the Kitchen. The composer's definition of the imaginary word Zaka is "to do the following almost simultaneously and with great speed: zap, sock, race, turn, drop, sprint. See also Eighth Blackbird." Or perhaps imagine Maurice Sendak creatures in flight across a rhythmically jagged, fantastical terrain. The start line is a pounded aggressive bass line on the piano. Spiky, stabbing strings; colorful percussion; woodwind whistles, whooshes and racing melodies; and string glissandos all eventually melt into a lyrical hibernation, before another explosion of breathless, propulsive force. The strange imaginary animals in Gordon Fitzell's evanescence (2006), which followed Zaka on the program, seemed to be from outer space. Mr. Fitzell uses electronic and avant-garde techniques, like running a wet finger around the edge of a glass, to create an eerie, throbbing, trancelike canvas, through which at one point a raspy cello line penetrates like the moan of an angry Martian. A recording of Dennis DeSantis's Strange Imaginary Remix (2006), a funky techno synopsis of the CD, was played while eighth blackbird members set up for David M. Gordon's relentless Friction Systems (2002, revised 2005). This work uses extensively prepared piano, microtonal tunings, brake drums, toy piano and other avant-garde elements to create a rhythmically conflicting, tense and unstable musical tapestry. eighth blackbird often performs from memory, although here the group used scores for everything except evanescence. There wasn't the theatrical element sometimes included in its concerts, but there was nothing static about the performances, which bristled with energy and conviction.

Chicago Sun-Times
October 30, 2006

By Andrew Patner

Chicago's new music scene has grown tremendously in quantity in recent years. The newly revived umbrella group New Music Chicago has 25 constituent members, and this weekend it launched "Sonic Impact" at the Museum of Contemporary Art, a two-day blowout of 16 concerts and roundtables. Groups working together to find and increase their audience and venues presenting works and hosting encounters across genres are surely good developments. But what of quality? The recent lack of a clear focus among major presenters - including the University of Chicago's once-reigning Contemporary Chamber Players, now renamed Contempo; Chicago Chamber Musicians' Composer's Perspective series, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's MusicNOW programs - is a cause for concern. And some of the new groups, while clearly ambitious and curious about composers, just do not have the chops to perform difficult work on the highest level. This weekend's centerpiece concert, the eighth blackbird ensemble under Contempo's auspices, raised another set of questions. What happens when a group of unquestioned technical ability seems no longer to have sharp aesthetic taste or an understanding of how to present a varied program? Of four works presented Saturday evening, including two commissions, only the work of U. of C. doctoral student David M. Gordon sounded worthy of repeated hearings, and even this piece was hard to tune into with care following works that tried to mine the same veins of looped repetition. The local premiere of Chicago native and 1979 Pulitzer Prize-winner Joseph Schwantner's new Rhiannon's Blackbirds, a National Endowment for the Arts/Chamber Music America commission by the ensemble, seemed more a student exercise in perpetual motion and wore out its welcome quickly. Gordon Beeferman, 3O, describes himself as "part of the up-and-coming generation of creative artists." I'm not sure what this means, but where Schwantner's piece gave us the same thing over and over, Beeferman's 2O-minute world premiere Reliquary had almost nothing happening at all: The plastic toys that ended the piece were as interesting as anything "composed" here. Derek Bermel's brief 1999 Coming Together was another exercise, in this case in what happens when a clarinet and a cello keep playing sliding tones (glissandi) while facing each other. Answer? Not much. Gordon's recently revised Friction Systems considered many of these same materials but did so in a way that sought to make music and not just a comment on music.

Lawrence Journal-World
November 11, 2003

By Emily Criqui

When eighth blackbird, the current ensemble-in-residence at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, performed Sunday at the Lied Center, each member had a chance to shine individually - and did. But it was as a group that eighth blackbird really dazzled. Having performed together since undergraduate school (1996), this ensemble was immaculately tight. In the first piece, Variations by David Schober, musical lines passed seamlessly between instruments while the group communicated entrances and cutoffs with eye contact and synchronized breathing. In similar smooth style, a sustained vibraphone note provided a bridge between Variations and the second work: Gordon Fitzell's Violence. The group varied this technique throughout the performance to allow the audience's experience to blend. Before the concert, eighth blackbird announced its goal to present a collage in three sections, rather than nine separate pieces. The group employed light changes and simple choreography - bowed heads or performers facing the backdrop - to help the audience differentiate between pieces. In Dennis DeSantis' Own, the performers moved stands, crotales and sheet music purposefully about the stage, reorganizing the setup while playing their instruments. This unique and effective combination allowed the whole concert to become greater than the sum of its parts. Violence, however, surprised the audience, employing friction more than dynamics. It juxtaposed contrasting sounds to great effect: exaggerated expulsions of breath, sustained high pulses interspersed with low drumbeats, frantic hand movements that resulted in frenzied silence and quarter-tone tensions. In contrast, David M. Gordon's energetic Dramamine explored the nature of the very symptoms the popular over-the-counter medication is designed to alleviate: "disorientation, imbalance and disaccord." During an impromptu talk at the preconcert lecture, the composer joked that perhaps his piece should be called Violence. Gordon combined prepared piano with a tuned clay flowerpot, toy piano and bowl gongs. These instruments' ingeniously mingled overtones produced a sound reminiscent of a Javanese gamelan. "Crystalline," the first movement of Reflections on the Nature of Water by Jacob Druckman, was an impressive marimba solo. Chen Yi's Qi contained an elegant exposed cello part, which was exquisitely rendered. But later in the piece, the piano and percussion overwhelmed the flute and cello. In Mei, a beautifully performed composition for solo flute, written by Kazuo Fukusima, breathing became an effective part of the performance: short intakes and long, ragged inhalations foreshadowed the type and tone of the lines to follow. While the music eighth blackbird plays may not be the average cup of Joe, the group's combined abilities do much to sweeten the pot.

Chicago Sun-Times
April 21, 1998

By Wynne Delacoma

The Chicago Sinfonietta's willingness to try new things brought an unlikely sort of East meets West program to Symphony Center Monday night. The Sinfonietta has worked with students at Northern Illinois University in the past, primarily the university's accomplished steel band. Last year, Sinfonietta Music Director Paul Freeman commissioned an NIU composition student, David Gordon, to write a piece for NIU's gamelan ensemble and Freeman's chamber orchestra. Titled Hollow Psalm, it had its world premiere Saturday in DeKalb and was repeated Monday to close the Sinfonietta's season. Indonesia's traditional orchestra of gongs, drums and instruments that resemble xylophones, the gamelan has intrigued Western composers for the past century. But formidable obstacles work against blending it with a Western orchestra. The gamelan's scales clash with Western tuning. The instruments' sounds are diffuse compared with the sharply focused pitches of modern violins, woodwinds and brass. Gordon wisely kept his musical ideas simple in Hollow Psalm, and some interesting developments emerged along with some deftly crafted moments. The gamelan's relatively indeterminate tone and the Western orchestra's more penetrating, defined sound aren't necessarily at odds. Frequently in Hollow Psalm, Sinfonietta musicians picked up a gamelan tone, giving it more focus but extending its emotional reach rather than clashing with it. And putting gamelan and orchestra on the same stage may be a novelty, but we've heard this song before. Should we be surprised that that crafty innovator, Richard Wagner, anticipated the gamelan's metallic clank set against the Western orchestra's lush romanticism in the underground forge scenes in his epic opera cycle, The Ring of the Nibelungs? The program also featured guitar virtuoso Angel Romero in the local premiere of Leonardo Balada's Concierto Magico. The three-movement piece wandered in spots, but Romero played with easy fluidity.