We received a glowing review from the venerable Donald Rosenberg in Cleveland’s Plain Dealer, for our concert at Fairmount Temple Auditorium in Beachwood, OH, as part of the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series.
As only a true attention-seeking prima donna could be, I was delighted to find that he mentions me up-front:
Haunted house. That’s how flutist Tim Munro described eighth blackbird, the instrumental sextet in which he and colleagues play contemporary music with a fusion of brilliance, charisma and joy.
Although audiences certainly don’t know what they’re going to get at an eighth blackbird concert, the results aren’t so much scary (Munro’s word) as captivating. So let’s propose a slightly different metaphor for the group: enchanted garden.
Ok, so “haunted house” was stretching it a little. (In my intros to our previous few concerts, I’ve likened seeing an 8bb performance to taking a ride on Space Mountain, listening to the radio while driving cross country, and making a trip to the circus. I’m prone to perversity…)
After declaring that we were “in top form,” Rosenberg asserts that the ensemble “brings magical qualities to music of fragrant and pungent allure.” We have “a knack for programming works of color and suspense. As the musicians interact, they often tap physically into the theatricality that animates the scores.” Rosenberg does a particularly deft job of “painting” each piece in just a few words:
Two movements from Dennis DeSantis’ “Powerless” found the players trading syncopated figures, savoring rhythmic puzzles and engaging in frisky conversation. Franco Donatoni’s “Arpege” moves from shadowy piano and vibraphone lines to nimble ensemble fragments, snapping strings and wisps of sound.
Clarinetist Maccaferri had a chance to scoot on and offstage during Thomas Ades’ “Catch,” a deft mix of dreamy and irreverent material. And the alternation of lyrical and fierce activity in movements from Roshanne Etezady’s “Damaged Goods” found eighth blackbird in typically alert, soaring frame of mind.
(A side-note: It was nice to meet Donald Rosenberg’s predecessor at the Dealer, Robert Finn, who interviewed the Phot and me in an entertaining pre-concert chat. What a nice bloke, who told interesting anecdotes in his wonderfully dapper, old-fashioned suit and bow-tie.)
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