The Desert Music by Steve Reich is an impressive work for choir and orchestra that connects poetic language with the threat and uncertainty of its time. The title and texts are drawn from William Carlos Williams, whose words Reich brought together into one vast, breathing sonic landscape, based on Williams’ collection The Desert Music and Other Poems. Yet there is more beneath the surface of that landscape: Reich deliberately selected texts from Williams’ post-Hiroshima and Nagasaki period, a time when “the bomb” cast a shadow over the world. The music reveals how human dreams and desires collide with the questions raised by our conscience — a tension that lies at the heart of The Desert Music. “The desert” itself remains ambiguous: a real place, an inner emptiness, or a vision of the future.
Led by the Hague concert hall Amare, the ensembles HIIIT, New European Ensemble, Nederlands Kamerkoor (NKK), Klang, and Het Muziek join forces to celebrate Reich’s 90th birthday with a performance of his magnum opus, The Desert Music. During the day, the Sing Day of the Nederlands Kamerkoor will take place, open to anyone who wishes to participate by registering through the NKK website. In the evening, the Haags Toonkunstkoor will surprise visitors in the foyer with a work by Anne-Maartje Lemereis (former Composer of the Netherlands), in which choir and audience enter the concert hall together in song.
At the performance in the Muziekgebouw, Music for Pieces of Wood by Steve Reich will also be performed.
