American composer Steven Mackey's Dreamhouse defies easy definition. It grew out of a commission from the 2003 Holland Festival that specified a work featuring electric guitars, and Dreamhouse includes a quartet of them, but it's also scored for orchestra, a vocal quartet "that must have the technique of a Hilliard Ensemble as well as that of a Manhattan Transfer," and a singer/actor with a range from bass to countertenor, specifically, Rinde Eckert, who, along with the composer, wrote the text. The piece doesn't have a ...
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American composer Steven Mackey's Dreamhouse defies easy definition. It grew out of a commission from the 2003 Holland Festival that specified a work featuring electric guitars, and Dreamhouse includes a quartet of them, but it's also scored for orchestra, a vocal quartet "that must have the technique of a Hilliard Ensemble as well as that of a Manhattan Transfer," and a singer/actor with a range from bass to countertenor, specifically, Rinde Eckert, who, along with the composer, wrote the text. The piece doesn't have a traditional narrative arc, but its texts all have to do with the idea of creating a house "where you can live, where you'll be safe." Some of the harmony, text-setting, and orchestration can be traced to models like Steve Reich's The Desert Music and numerous pieces by Louis Andriessen, but there are references to a variety of traditions ranging from Renaissance polyphony to American rock, and Mackey brings an Ivesian mentality to the material that fractures and recombines it in...
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