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Kamran Ince’s Before Infrared at the University of Akron Symphony

Feb. 28, 2012

Kamran Ince’s <em>Before Infrared</em> at the University of Akron Symphony

On March 1, the University of Akron Symphony presented Kamran Ince’s Before Infrared, conducted by Guy Victor Bordo. Composed in 1986, the work saw its premiere performance with Leonard Slatkin and the St. Louis Symphony in 1987.

Following the success of the composer’s earlier orchestral piece Infrared Only (1985) (premiered by the New York Youth Symphony), Ince composed Before Infrared as a companion piece, and both pieces may be performed together to form the larger scale orchestral work Infrared. The work was included in the recent Naxos release Galatasary. Critic Tom Strini writes:

It opens with a heaving, low groaning suggestive of a great iron beast awakening from slumber. A pulse rises so gradually from the orchestra that you barely realize that the music is moving until the train has left the station. This is travelling music not of the airy, gliding sort. The music brightens but does not lighten. The groaning weight heard at the outset persists with the stepped-up velocity. The music creates a sense of great mass hurtling through a vast space. Trumpets call out rapid alarms in the night. Intense, deep drumbeats pound at intervals. Day breaks in a chiming melody of hocketing, overlapping brasses nine minutes into the trip. The pace relaxes, the music lightens ever so gradually and we arrive at our final destination, a bright and shimmering aural Shangri-la.

For more on Kamran Ince visit www.kamranince.com and www.schott-music.com.

Details on the concert can be found on the University of Akron’s performance calendar here.

Order Galatasary at www.amazon.com.

Before Infrared (1986)
for orchestra
3.2.3.3-4.3.3.1-timp.3perc-hp-str
10' 

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