So after the symphony on Sunday afternoon we got a bite to eat in the Grand Centre district, then walked down to the new Public Media Commons. The contemporary music ensemble Alarm Will Sound gave a performance of John Luther Adams' new work 10,000 Birds. Adams was awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for music.
The piece has been described as:
The piece has been described as:
based on the songs of birds native to Missouri and the western limit of the eastern hardwood forest, [it] will fully embrace the orchestral range of colors in the instrumentation of Alarm Will Sound. . . Each page in the score will be its own self-contained world that occupies its own physical space and its own time. Each of these pages/places can be performed for an indefinite duration. They can be combined, simultaneously and sequentially, in varied ways.It was ethereal. The performers carried small digital stopwatches and received cues on their iPhones as they wandered around the plaza. More to come.
