Points of Contact - A Tribute to Karlheinz Stockhausen. MusicWeb International, October 6, 2009
I've been wanting to write about the Talea Ensemble for months, ever since their concert at The Players Theatre last spring. On an unseasonably warm evening, this group founded by Anthony Cheung and Alex Lipowski gave a sensational concert of music rarely (or never) heard in New York, including the United States premiere of Pierluigi Billone's Mani.De Leonardis (2004) for automobile springs and glass. (An excerpt is here.)
In an equally compelling evening a few months later, Lipowski presented a new piece by Billone, Mani.Mano (2008) for spring drum, a cylindrical instrument with a long, skinny metal coil that can be dragged across other surfaces or shaken to create an eerie warbling effect. See for yourself here.
More reports to come, on their remarkable concert with the International Contemporary Ensemble of music by Mario Diaz de León, and their amusing afternoon at the Roger Smith Hotel.
[Photo: automobile springs from Herod Mattress, Zhejiang, China]