Mature Eighth Blackbird flies high
Ensemble performs beyond the fringe

It's been a thrill for metro Detroiters to watch Eighth Blackbird grow into a leading new music ensemble, because we've known about the group's charisma and skill longer than most.

Bright in the Dead of the Night

Eighth blackbird’s concert on Saturday defied elementary arithmetic. For example, the program featured two pieces, but four composers, which might seem twice as many composers as was required. Similarly, the first piece specified 12 musicians, but was performed by only six, which might seem twice too few.

REVIEW: Eighth Blackbird

Intensely Innovative
Eighth Blackbird Gives Wing to New Works

Six musicians are playing a duet with recorded versions of themselves. It is like looking into an electronic mirror. The mirror refracts the rapid, driving beat of piano and marimba; it adds a reflected gleam to long-held chords of strings and winds. The players, live and recorded, create layer upon layer of sound, a rich mille-feuille of music, while pinwheeling light-images create visual parallels on the wall behind them…

Versatile eighth blackbird makes music look easy

Wednesday's concert "The Only Moving Thing" by University of Richmond resident sextet eighth blackbird at Camp Concert Hall had a lot more than one thing moving. Fresh off its first Grammy award, the group showed a versatility that must be seen and heard to be fully appreciated…

Review: eighth blackbird "The Only Moving Thing"

By Clarke Bustard
Whoever said first impressions are the truest doesn’t know some of my best friends, and wouldn’t stand a chance of getting to the nub of "singing in the dead of night," a wildly eventful, 45-minute-long work by composers David Lang, Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe and choreographer Susan Marshall, given its first performance by eighth blackbird.