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SMM 008CD
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"The Lion's Throne bears witness to the performances that the legendary composer Terry Riley and Italian singer Amelia Cuni did together in the United Kingdom and Italy between 1999 and 2006. Riley, whose remarkable body of work seamlessly integrates a lifetime of devotion to Indian classical music into the western classical tradition, collaborates with Cuni, a singer trained in Dhrupad who, like Riley, experiments with Indian singing in a variety of ways. In these recordings, Riley plays piano or keyboards and sings with Cuni. Together, they improvise in Hindi, English, and Italian, drawing from their Indian music background as well as from western traditions. They sing on ancient and modern texts, creating a new blend which mirrors their own musical paths."
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SMM 004CD
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"BH2K was commissioned by the Paul Dresher Ensemble and first performed on Feb. 10, 2001 at Stanford University as part of the Lively Arts Festival and featured Terry Riley as piano soloist. The 50-minute work is in four movements. The work takes the form of a chamber concerto and was written specifically for the performance capabilities of the Dresher Ensemble and guest soloist Tracy Silverman on electric viola. The first movement is the most classical in form and content, opening with a piano solo that leads to the opening theme. After variations on the opening theme, the driving secondary subject is introduced and then combined with the opening theme. There follows more secondary themes that lead into the spacious chorale from which the movement derives its name. Then follows a piano cadenza that leads to the Eastern-sounding coda, which concludes the movement. 'The Maze; is a labyrinthine movement based on polymetric patterns that float over a 17 beat rhythmic cycle. It is scored in an open way to allow the ensemble choices on how to assemble the flow of the music. 'Goodbye Goodtimes Blues for Millennium's Child' is my one millennium piece, feeling fortunate to be one of those having a foot in both the 20th and 21st centuries. The inspiration was to create an old-time blues tune, reminiscent of the music of the '20s and '30s that gives way to a more hard core version of 21st century blues, showing how this old 'American Raga' is capable of so many expressions as it crosses over this imaginary time marker. This movement is open to large sections of improvisation. 'Danzero,' a made-up name for a movement with South American flavoring. It is the concluding movement containing shifting rhythms and tempos combining the tunefulness of Brazilian choros superimposed on compound and polyrhythmic structures. Toward the end of the movement, there are many improvised solos over the Latin groove that impels the highly energized ending." By the way, this is not a CD for fans of the "classic" Terry Riley sound. Maybe it is a CD for fans of the Paul Dresher Ensemble, wherever they may be. We listened to it in complete bewilderment...
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