Special offer. Joan Tower: Strike Zones
Small; Still/Rapids; Ivory and Ebony
Evelyn Glennie, Blair McMillen, Albany Symphony, David Alan Miller
Awards:
-
Presto Editor's Choice, July 2021
Placing instruments at the heart of her writing – and featuring a tautly responsive Albany Symphony under conductor David Alan Miller – this handsomely recorded album presents a concerto and...
Special offer. Joan Tower: Strike Zones
Small; Still/Rapids; Ivory and Ebony
Evelyn Glennie, Blair McMillen, Albany Symphony, David Alan Miller
Purchase product
Awards:
-
Presto Editor's Choice, July 2021
Placing instruments at the heart of her writing – and featuring a tautly responsive Albany Symphony under conductor David Alan Miller – this handsomely recorded album presents a concerto and...
About
Joan Tower is widely regarded as one of today’s most important American composers. The works heard here in their world premiere recordings are part of a growing legacy that one pundit has described as “The Power of Tower.” Strike Zones is tailor-made for percussionist Evelyn Glennie’s dazzling technique and impeccable musicianship. The work’s orchestration is crafted to enhance a stage filled with percussion instruments – while in Small they are contained on a single table, the soloist working like a brilliant chef. The piano concerto Still/Rapids was inspired by the glistening beauty and powerful force of water, and Ivory and Ebony, written as a test piece for an international piano competition, is infused with Tower’s “high-energy” signature.
Contents and tracklist
Awards and reviews
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Presto Editor's ChoiceJuly 2021
September 2021
Placing instruments at the heart of her writing – and featuring a tautly responsive Albany Symphony under conductor David Alan Miller – this handsomely recorded album presents a concerto and solo work apiece for percussion and piano...Glennie expertly dances her way through a woodmetal-skin array, the high point a somewhat sinister castanet trio with two orchestral percussionists.
October 2021
all this virtuosity and incident is crammed into one action-packed disc lasting just 53 minutes: the Power of Tower, indeed. Recommended.
July 2021
Glennie is on mercurial, athletic form in the title-work, written for her in 2001 and showcasing an entire battery of percussion instruments including marimba, glockenspiel, vibraphone and castanets; Blair McMillen is scarcely less compelling in the piano concerto Still/Rapids, a two-part waterscape depicting a calm, iridescent lake on a summer’s day followed by a white-knuckle river-ride of a toccata.
22nd July 2021
Glennie gives a dynamic performance here, and Blair McMillen makes sparkling work of the mini piano concerto Still/Rapids.
