By Joe Wicke
They’ve performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They’ve performed alongside pop icon Björk at Carnegie Hall. Now, the band Alarm Will Sound performed the piece “Music for 18 Musicians” at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on Saturday.
Alarm Will Sound is a chamber orchestra made up of 20 musicians who play contemporary classical music. The group was founded in 1996 by Artistic Director and Conductor Alan Pierson, who gathered his friends from the Eastman School of Music to create a band.
The band seeks to push the boundaries of live performance, according to their website. They will often incorporate multimedia elements into their concerts such as video, text and theater.
“We’re always thinking about the audience experience and how we as performers can best convey that,” Pierson said.
Past shows include “HEARD,” a music-storytelling hybrid that showed how composers tell their life stories through their music, and “1969,” which combined music and theater to showcase contemporary composers who were addressing world problems in their pieces.
While many of their shows were forward-thinking and grandiose, their performance of “Music for 18 Musicians” was decidedly different.
“This concert is not about pushing boundaries in a new way,” Pierson explained. “It’s about celebrating someone who pushed boundaries years ago in a really crucial, transformative way.”
Composer Steve Reich is considered by many to be an influential figure in the world of contemporary music. He is best known for embracing a more simple, minimalist sound in a time where complexity and intricacy were valued in pieces.
“Music for 18 Musicians” was released in 1976. The piece is based on a cycle of 11 chords repeated throughout. Instruments featured include the violin, piano, clarinet, marimba and maracas. Players will often switch between instruments mid-performance.
Founding member and violinist Courtney Orlando emphasized the collaboration required for this piece, a core value of Alarm Will Sound.
“There’s obviously community in playing it,” Orlando said. “There’s no conductor, you’re relying on each other…you have to really feel good about the people you’re playing with and trust them.”
Alarm Will Sound played this piece for Reich during their time at Eastman. For many in the band, like founding member clarinetist Elisabeth Stimpert, this experience stuck with them for life.
“Playing a piece like ‘Music for 18 Musicians’ where all of the decisions about the music are diffused and spread out amongst the ensemble changes the way you think about how music works,” Stimpert said.
Years later, Pierson is excited to share this piece with audiences due to its integral connection to the band.
“That concert and our relationship with [Reich] is a really deep part of Alarm Will Sound’s history,” he said. “For us to come back and do the piece again is really meaningful.
Pierson recounted the quick turnaround Alarm Will Sound had for their recent performance. Rehearsals were first divided into sections based on the instrument each musician was playing. The first full rehearsal was just two days before the show on Thursday, April 11.
“Music for 18 Musicians” was performed alongside the pieces “Vermont Counterpoint,” “Clapping Music” and “Radio Rewrite,” the latter two of which were also composed by Reich.
For its historical importance to both Alarm Will Sound and the music itself, many in the band believe this is a must-see show.
“[‘Music for 18 Musicians’] is a unique human experience that I think is essential to how music functions in our society,” Stimpert said. “The more we can enable that to happen, the better off we will be.”
Featured image: Alarm Will Sound uses multimedia elements in their performance. Photo courtesy Alarm Will Sound.