A fascinating project
Niwa at Gramophone Magazine
This second release focuses on Ramon Humet (b 1968), who studied at the Barcelona Conservatoire and has latterly been influenced by the sonic and spiritual concerns of the late Jonathan Harvey. This is evident throughout the three works featured here -not least Four Zen Gardens (2008), in which three percussionists pursue a wide-ranging discourse unified by their heterophonic interplay over four main sections linked by three interludes of gently resonating timbres.
This fastidiousness is no less to the forefront in Garden of Haikus (2007), whose 10 brief yet continuous movements -each evoking a specific mood- unfold as might a sequence of interconnected Japanese poems. The haiku is the determining element of Petals (2009), whose three lengthy movements transmut Bankoku's text in ways which, for all their indebtedness to Oriental practice, constitute a unified as well as evolving conception that is inherently Western both in its formal and expressive concerns. (Richard Whitehouse)
3 february 2014
Niwa at Gramophone Magazine
This second release focuses on Ramon Humet (b 1968), who studied at the Barcelona Conservatoire and has latterly been influenced by the sonic and spiritual concerns of the late Jonathan Harvey. This is evident throughout the three works featured here -not least Four Zen Gardens (2008), in which three percussionists pursue a wide-ranging discourse unified by their heterophonic interplay over four main sections linked by three interludes of gently resonating timbres.
This fastidiousness is no less to the forefront in Garden of Haikus (2007), whose 10 brief yet continuous movements -each evoking a specific mood- unfold as might a sequence of interconnected Japanese poems. The haiku is the determining element of Petals (2009), whose three lengthy movements transmut Bankoku's text in ways which, for all their indebtedness to Oriental practice, constitute a unified as well as evolving conception that is inherently Western both in its formal and expressive concerns. (Richard Whitehouse)
3 february 2014
An opera-oratorio
Rebecca Simpson, idea and libretto. Ramon Humet, composition. Gerd-Hagen Seebach, stage direction. Andreas Henning, music direction
World premiere: Halle Oper, Germany. 02.10.2013. Other performances: 06.10.2013, 18.10.2013, 23.10.2013, 09.11.2013, 24.11.2013
2 october 2013
Niwa
London Sinfonietta & Nicholas Collon
15 september 2012