Review: 175 East at The Basement
5:00AM
Thursday April 10, 2008
By William Dart
These days the contemporary ensemble 175 East does its thing under a catchy byline, "Organised Sound from Organised Labour" - a phrase that evokes the committed camaraderie of collectives from the WPA projects of 1930s America to Cornelius Cardew's Scratch Orchestra of the 70s.
James Gardner and his 175 East musicians have the same dedication to their brand of music, making their first Auckland appearance for some time at The Basement.
Walls which once echoed to Shane Bosher's productions now looked down on clarinettist Gretchen Dunsmore, firing off the concert with Peter Maxwell Davies' The Seven Brightnesses, a brittle, virtuoso beauty with moments of fleeting voluptuousness.
Elliott Carter's Con Leggerezza Pensosa deals in complex, characterful gestures, given their best by Andrew Uren, Johnny Chang and Katherine Hebley; the "lightness of thought" that the work's title describes was reflected in the shifting relationships from player to player, and engaging volleys of pizzicato.
