Another Pi Day, 3/14, just slipped by, so let’s hear the magic of numbers on Now Is the Time on WRTI this Saturday, March 18th at 9 pm. Reginald Bain based his Pi Day on... well, you'll hear as much of the 3.1415926... sequence that can fit into four minutes and 50 seconds, read aloud over his inventively pulsing music. You can check here to see if he got it right.
From a number the end of which is unattainable we then go to Unattainable Spaces by David Laganella, abstract music based on an abstract painting. We see a recognizable number in Daniel Schnyder’s The Iron Tetrapod, but have no idea what a Quiptych is, until we enjoy a piece with that title by David Evan Thomas, performed by Zeitgeist.
For pianist Jerome Lowenthal, Ned Rorem wrote 75 Notes for Jerry, and for the Baroque/new music ensemble Mélomanie, composer and lutenist Mark Rimple composed Partita 622. Mark Zuckerman’s Proverbs for Four at Fifty sets Hebrew scriptures to celebrate the jubilee of 50th birthdays. Then our numbers program, which started with pi, closes by circling back to Reginald Bain and his entertaining piece The Music of the Primes.
PROGRAM:
Reginald Bain: Pi Day
David Laganella: Unattainable Spaces
Daniel Schnyder: The Iron Tetrapod
David Evan Thomas: Quiptych
Ned Rorem: 75 Notes for Jerry
Mark Rimple: Partita 622
Mark Zuckerman: Proverbs for Four at Fifty
Reginald Bain: The Music of the Primes