Steve Reich with Alarm Will Sound

There is nothing like performing some of your favorite music with the very musicians whose recordings set the standard for that music. This was the case working with the incomparable Alarm Will Sound on Steve Reich’s Radio Rewrite. I had AWS’s 2014 Nonesuch album on repeat through college, particularly while learning the work’s Piano 2 part (which I specifically requested for that raucous piano solo in Movement V) to be performed at an Eastman Musica Nova concert in 2019. But Radiohead is also deeply rooted in the core of my musical being––you couldn’t pry my headphones off as a strange 9-year-old listening to OK Computer. And its distinctive moody harmonic voice translates fluently in Reich’s rewrite.

I was overjoyed to collaborate with Alan Pierson (pictured below) and beyond honored to lead his ensemble as their first guest conductor in the group’s history. Talk about a pinch-me moment.

Concert: Lila by Texu Kim, Hasta que no pueda by Christian Quiñones, Vermillion Glare by Elijah Daniel Smith, and Radio Rewrite by Steve Reich. Performed in Columbia, MO on January 16, 2024.