March 4, 2010 concert reviews

Letter V

Review: 'Slide'

The contemporary music sextet eighth blackbird concluded its sixth season in residence at the University of Richmond with "Slide," a theatrical song cycle by writer, singer and actor Rinde Eckert and composer-guitarist Steve Mackey. The piece is a multimedia, multi-layered parable on "the lengths we will go [to] to preserve our illusions, our guesses about the world and our experiences," as Mackey puts it in his program notes.

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March 2, 2010 features

RVA News

Slide and seek: eighth blackbird is it

eighth blackbird, artists-in-residence at the University of Richmond and the University of Chicago, return to the Modlin Center on Wednesday after a week-and-a-half of frenzied travel. Their recent journeys have put them in front of 300 six-year-olds in Erie, Pennsylvania, a concert audience in Winchester, Virginia, and conservatory students at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. Check out their twitter feed at @eighthblackbird for a masterful and often hilarious use of technology to document their adventures. Even in this era of widespread multi-media, genre-splicing, mash-up style experimentation, Wednesday night's performance offers a unique and mind-bending experience.

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February 26, 2010 concert reviews

Philadelphia Inquirer

Sextet x 2: eighth blackbird, Curtis group play together

The contemporary music group eighth blackbird would seem a bit young to be holding a residency at the Curtis Institute of Music. Didn't this sextet form the day before yesterday?

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February 18, 2010 features

GoErie

Chicago ensemble plays chamber music with commitment,
energy of a rock band

If your idea of a chamber music recital is a pot of lukewarm tea, eighth blackbird is a case of Red Bull.

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February 14, 2010 concert reviews

George Bass Blog

Eighth Blackbird @ Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's 2010 New Music Festival

The performance by Eighth Blackbird was energetic, enthusiastic and meaningful. Winnipeg, we have no idea how lucky we were to have had this calibre of new music ensemble and music played for us.

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January 17, 2010 concert reviews

Chicago Classical Review

Contempo’s classical and jazz mix makes for bracing night at the Harris

Founded by Ralph Shapey, the Chicago Contemporary Players concerts—Contempo for short—have been bringing new music to local audiences for 46 years, with the University of Chicago series presenting more than eighty world premieres. That tradition continues today under composer and CCP artistic director Shulamit Ran, with Contempo drawing on U of C’s two superb resident ensembles, the Pacifica Quartet and eighth blackbird, as well as guest artists.

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January 13, 2010 concert reviews

Cincinnati Enquirer

Eighth blackbird returns in fine form

The Grammy-winning group eighth blackbird is celebrated for performing the music of our time, because they enjoy "the enormous, crazy, off-the-wall bizarreness of a lot of it," flutist Tim Munro told a near-capacity crowd in Corbett Auditorium at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music on Tuesday night.

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January 6, 2010 features

City Beat

Flipping the ’Bird

Acclaimed ensemble eighth blackbird continues to shatter chamber music expectations.

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