Terry Riley’s Voices In C

Paul Hillier gives us an interesting new take on a musical icon of the 1960’s. Acclaimed as a choral director Hillier is also author of books on minimalist composers Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt, and lives in Copenhagen. With these credentials a vocal take on Terry Riley’s minimalist classic In C with Danish forces makes a lot of sense. A vocal version was first discussed with the composer in the mid 1990s, and Riley annotated a score with ‘sacred syllables’ for the singers to use. It has taken ten years for the project to come to fruition, but the wait was well worth it.
The new recording of In C has been made by Paul Hillier (below) with the twelve-strong early and contemporary vocal goup Ars Nova Copenhagen and the Percurama Percussion

This is timeless music in more ways than one. The designer of the appealing Bridget Riley influenced sleeve had the bright idea of including old photographs of all the performers in 1964, the year that Terry Riley composed his masterpiece. But such is the youth (and talent) of the performers that many couldn’t supply photographs – simply because they weren’t born in that year.
Now read more about Terry Riley’s music in Requiem for Adam
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Comments
All best,
Marc