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Gavin Bryars's The Other Side of the River Debuts with Third Coast Percussion; ECM Records Releases The Fifth Century

Nov. 02, 2016

Gavin Bryars's <em>The Other Side of the River</em> Debuts with Third Coast Percussion; ECM Records Releases <em>The Fifth Century</em>

The Other Side of the River, a new percussion quartet by Gavin Bryars, receives its world premiere on November 17 with Third Coast Percussion as part of Peak Performances at Montclair State University in New Jersey. The program, titled “See You Later”, features lighting, film, and staging by director Cathie Boyd and her Glasgow-based arts organization Cryptic. Bryars’s new work was commissioned by Peak Performances along with The University of Notre Dame’s DeBartolo Performing Arts Center for Third Coast Percussion.

On November 18, ECM Records releases a new album of Bryars’s choral music including the premiere recording of his recent large-scale work The Fifth Century for choir and saxophone quartet. The album, titled after the work, features the Philadelphia based chamber choir The Crossing along with the Prism Saxophone Quartet, who gave the world premiere of The Fifth Century in 2014, led by Donald Nally. The piece sets a text from the 17th-century English poet and theologian Thomas Traherne’s Centuries of Meditation. The text has an intense spirituality, celebrating the glory of creation and Traherne's near intimate relationship with God. Bryars’s Two Love Songs, also recorded on the album, are stunning works for vocal trio or three-part female choir, sung here by the women of The Crossing. Setting two of Francesco Petrarca’s lyric poems of profound and idealized love, the words and music complement each other in beauty and technical brilliance. 

For more information on Gavin Bryars, visit schott-music.com.

The Fifth Century will be available in the US on November 18 via iTunes, Amazon, and other retailers.

Gavin Bryars
The Other Side of the River (2015)
for percussion quartet
22’ 

The Fifth Century (2014)
for choir and saxophone quartet
text (Eng) from Thomas Traherne’s Centuries of Meditation
40’ 

Two Love Songs (2010)
for three female voices or female choir
text (Itl) by Francesco Petrarca
6’

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