Percussionist Evelyn Glennie is not front-page news as she was when she came on the scene in the late 1980s. It is thus all to her credit that she has remained active and continued to issue distinctive recordings, of which this trio of concertos offers a superb example. The three works are all contemporary, and all come from different spheres of the musical universe. Two are world premieres. The Marimba Concerto (2004) of Alexis Alrich is an attractive work, with kinetic rhythms drawing on Asian and Mexican sources as well ...
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Percussionist Evelyn Glennie is not front-page news as she was when she came on the scene in the late 1980s. It is thus all to her credit that she has remained active and continued to issue distinctive recordings, of which this trio of concertos offers a superb example. The three works are all contemporary, and all come from different spheres of the musical universe. Two are world premieres. The Marimba Concerto (2004) of Alexis Alrich is an attractive work, with kinetic rhythms drawing on Asian and Mexican sources as well as on minimalism. Karl Jenkins' marimba concerto La Folia, drawing on the Baroque ground bass, has been recorded before but not often; it makes an admirable instrumental companion piece to his international choral smash, The Armed Man. For some, the real find will be Ned Rorem's Mallet Concerto, composed in 2003 when Rorem was 80 (one hopes that, still alive at 98 when the album was released, he is getting to hear Glennie's work), which is also a world premiere. The work was written...
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