This music showcase took the audience back to the roots of Minimalism, with its raw sound world and mechanised procedures.
Anya Pang and Ting Zhao demonstrated this in abstraction with Steve Reich’s ‘Clapping Music’. That was followed by music from the minimalist canon, including Philip Glass’s piano works, played with unrelenting energy by Arissa Vaziri, Eliza Ang and Joseph Charkin.
The second half juxtaposed the well-known composer Terry Riley and his magnum opus ‘In C’ with recently rediscovered genius and outsider Julius Eastman and his defiant work ‘Stay On It’. Both works were performed by the Space Collective, which rose up to the challenge that these experimental works posed.
Eastman composed music that took on radical political viewpoints. He was very open to speaking about his experiences as a gay and black musician working in 1970s America. His works, by way of provocative and overt titles, force listeners, including our audience, to confront issues of social inequality through the genre of Minimalist music.
Well done to all our musicians who participated. Pictures of the concert can be found here.
