PARTCH Ensemble

Over the coming few months, we’ll release the live performance videos from our June 2024 concert at REDCAT. Here is the first one, Three Dances!

1. Samba—A DECENT AND HONORABLE MISTAKE

2. Heartbeat Rhythm—RHYTHM OF THE WOMB–MELODY OF THE GRAVE

3. Afro-Chinese Minuet—HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

We begin this evening’s concert with the Three Dances that begin the third section of Partch’s Plectra & Percussion Dances (1952). The composer warned, “It’s an amazing fact that the world of dance music, and of Latin American dance music particularly, has produced an army of purists that is equal of anything that serious classical music can offer. I say this in order to advise you that the first scene, for example, “A Decent and Honorable Mistake,” may not be recognizable to you as a samba. The second scene, “Rhythm of the Womb, Melody of the Grave,” is based on a rhythmically contrapuntal heartbeat. The third scene, “Happy Birthday to You!” begins with an African-sounding marimba and somehow gets involved with a Chinese- sounding guitar in a pentatonic melody, and so I call it an Afro-Chinese Minuet.” This last dance ends with these directions: “Slowly enough that canon TRIADS are distinct,” after which they are to be played “faster than the previous runs so that the triads are NOT distinct.” The harmonies of each of those descending triads are wildly divergent, as if the composer is pausing to reminisce about various years past, but finally admits that as a 51-year old they are, in fact, a blur.

— John Schneider

PARTCH Ensemble—the Grammy Award-winning  ensemble specializing in the music and instruments of the iconoclastic American Maverick composer Harry Partch—returns to REDCAT with an evening of alluring and powerful music performed on the extraordinary orchestra of instruments Partch designed and built himself. This year’s program includes Partch’s Three Dances, Progressions/Abstractions & Delusions, and Five Intrusions, as well as the world premiere of Jeffrey Holmes’ Reið (Raidō) II [Ride, Journey] and a concert version of new scenes from Anne LeBaron’s latest opera, LSD – Huxley’s Last Trip.

The program includes an instrument “petting zoo”: audiences are encouraged to touch the instruments on stage after the show.

Stunning.

Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times

This performance is supported by the LA County Department of Arts and Culture as part of Creative Recovery LA, an initiative funded by the American Rescue Plan.

This performance is made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.