Champ d'Action - Slagwerkgroep Den Haag

From very early on, minimal music was associated with four composers: La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass. However, in addition to these major icons, minimal music also includes very different and no less interesting composers who are nonetheless often forgotten. This programme reveals minimalism as a broader, pluralistic movement. Reich's 'Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ' and Glass's 'One + One' and 'Music in Contrary Motion' are examples of immortal works from the movement's radical early period. They are presented here with films and videos by the minimalist artists Mark Verstockt and Michael Snow. The latter exhibited in the art galleries where Glass and Reich gave their first concerts. The austere, even conceptual approach of 'Having Never Written a Note for Percussion' by James Tenney, who also played in Reich's and Glass's ensembles, and Peter Garland's piece 'The Three Strange Angels' round out the evening. Two works by Tom Johnson from the 1990s demonstrate how minimalist ideas remained topical after the 1970s. There is also more of a focus on the conceptual nature of Johnson's music, which uses four instruments that play independently of one another - 'Simultaneous Progressions' - or on entirely mathematically created music - 'Automatic Music'.