Synergy Vocals / Ensemble Modern

When Minimal Music was invented in the 1960s many a critic would have loved for time to simply stop: hadn’t a contemporary method finally been found that was still functional at the tonal level, and which clearly differentiated itself from the music of old Europe that was becoming ever more complex? The most important composers of the minimalist scene, however, rejected using the new technology in a dogmatic manner. It seemed like a taboo had been broken when John Adams linked the idea of emotional development and ecstasy with strict minimalist patterns in his “Shaker Loops”. The legendary work, which Ensemble Modern and Synergy Vocals present under Brad Lubman, is one of three successful attempts to seek liberation from the chaste, pure tenets of Minimal Music. What Arnold Schönberg and American cartoon music have in common can be heard in Adam’s popular “Chamber Symphony”, while Steve Reich’s “Tehillim” newly invents Hebrew psalm singing in the spirit of Minimal Music, a tradition lost in the West.