Our fifth year (how time flies!) as Ensemble-in-Residence at the University of Richmond began with a concert in which 8bb collaborated with New York/Berlin-based laptop artist and composer Dennis DeSantis.
Two reviews of the Wednesday night concert have appeared. Clarke Bustard, who was the Richmond Times-Dispatch classical music reviewer for almost four decades, has written a review on his Letter V blog. Here is an excerpt:
By his own reckoning, DeSantis was “unobtrusive” in his sonic additions to “Powerless,” a four-movement piece he wrote in 2001. The composer electronically enhanced echo effects in string and wind instruments’ responses to jazz-inflected piano figures, compounded the density of the piece’s second movement, “Eel,” and enhanced a cello drone in the third movement, “Egis.”
As the program progressed through a set of pieces from eighth blackbird’s Grammy Award-winning album “Strange Imaginary Animals,” DeSantis’ presence grew. He added subtle atmospherics to the already subtle “evanescence” of Gordon Fitzell (a 2004 adaptation of Fitzell’s 2001-vintage “Violence”), and enhanced resonation and underlined instrumental sound effects in Steven Mackey’s “Indigenous Instruments” (1989).
The Richmond Times-Dispatch today printed a very positive review by Walt Amacker. Some excerpts:
Seldom comes the time when a cello and a bass clarinet play accompanied duets one-half tone apart for extended periods without most listeners wanting to tear out their hair. The folks in the University of Richmond’s artists-in-residence sextet eighth blackbird can do it and make you want to hear more…
Pulling from its Grammy Award-winning CD, “strange imaginary animals,” 8bb gave all the tracks to DeSantis and asked him to use them to create a computerized version of the CD. It was remarkable, sounding almost like a dancetrack for something that a Philadanco or an Alvin Ailey could fiddle with. The piece was officially labeled “strange imaginary remix.”…
More worldwide stages graced, more commissions set forth, four CDs and their first Grammy. It hasn’t taken many years, but the hard work is fanatically obvious.
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