#4129, From the 2018 Big Ears Festival
Listen to (more) music recorded at the 2018 Big Ears Festival for this New Sounds. Hear Knoxville-based new music group Nief-Norf and Wordless Music, performing the Benh Zeitlin & Dan Romer score for Viktor Jakovleski’s Brimstone & Glory. The film is a documentary about the annual 10-day National Pyrotechnics Festival in Tultepec, Mexico, that highlights the dangerous beauty of the festival and the profession of making fireworks. The array of explodey-things includes not only fireworks, but giant spinning towers of sparkling fire, and wheeled colorful paper bulls laden with pyrotechnics to celebrate San Juan De Dios, the patron saint of fireworks makers. The performance was recorded at the splendidly-renovated Tennessee Theatre, a classic, large-scale hall, and features some of the sounds of the film as well.
Also from Big Ears, hear “Quartet” by Steve Reich for two pianos and two vibraphones as performed by Nief Norf, featuring Russ Hartenberger. (Recorded at the Tennessee Theatre.) Plus, listen to a bit of pedal steel from musical innovator Susan Alcorn recorded at The Standard in Knoxville. Alcorn’s music stretches much further than country and western swing music and also draws from modern classical music, the deep listening of Pauline Oliveros, Astor Piazzolla’s nuevo tango, free jazz, and world music.
PROGRAM #4129, from the 2018 Big Ears Festival (First aired 7/06/2018)
ARTIST: Nief Norf and Wordless Music, conducted by Andy Bliss
WORK: Benh Zeitlin & Dan Romer: "Brimstone & Glory," excerpts [21:46]
RECORDING: Live, Tennessee Theatre, Big Ears 2018
SOURCE: Courtesy of https://bigearsfestival.org/
INFO: This performance not commercially available.
ARTIST: Nief Norf, featuring Russ Hartenberger
WORK: Steve Reich: Quartet for 2 pianos and 2 vibraphones [19:56]
RECORDING: Live, Tennessee Theatre, Big Ears 2018
SOURCE: Courtesy of https://bigearsfestival.org/
INFO: This performance not commercially available.
ARTIST: Susan Alcorn
WORK: Improvisation for pedal steel guitar [6:10]
RECORDING: Live, The Standard, Big Ears 2018
SOURCE: Courtesy of https://bigearsfestival.org/
INFO: This performance not commercially available.
