Einstein’s Dream – Cindy McTee
Went to the Dallas Symphony concert Friday night to check out Cindy McTee‘s new piece, Einstein’s Dream, for string orchestra, percussion, and pre-recorded electronics. I studied with Cindy during my MM at UNT, so it was great to see her and get the privilege of hearing one of her world premieres.
This was a very different piece from her – extremely restrained, quiet, dreamlike (on purpose, obviously, given the title). Divided into several connected movements, the piece opens with a Bach chorale arranged for strings, and augmented by the electronics. I thought she did a great job in obscuring the border between the acoustic and electronic worlds. I think this work would gain from repeated listenings – I need to hear it again to appreciate the stretched recapitulation of the Bach chorale at the end. My only criticism at this point would be some of the electronic sounds – to my ears, they have a definite CSound/granular synthesis trademark sound to them which I associate with the 80s and 90s academic sound synthesis tradition, which I was never really a part of. That’s probably simply a matter of my taste, however.
Andrew Litton and the Dallas Symphony gave a great performance and concert all-around. Cindy – bravo and congratulations!
The obligatory post-concert pic:
