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» Selected reviews:
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Musical Themes, Covering Landscapes, Allan Kozinn, The New York Times, 10/7/2011
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In “The Night Mare” Christopher Cerrone uses an electronic drone and sudden mezzo-piano instrumental thwacks — actually toneless string and woodwind attacks with no follow through — to suggest the dark, eerie atmosphere of a dream gone wrong. With that as backdrop he builds gentle but anxiety-drenched themes from delicate, treble piano figures and fills out the texture with a blend of vibraphones and electronic timbres that together create the impression of a distant, wordless chorale. Mr. Cerrone’s scoring is skillful and economical, and he captures the spirit of a nightmare without diving into a sea of cinematic clichés. His piece was the program’s highlight.
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Honoring a Mentor, Muse and Colleague All in One, Allan Kozinn, The New York Times
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The second half of the program opened with chamber arrangements of Ives songs by Red Light’s composer-directors, Scott Wollschleger, Vincent Raikhel, Christopher Cerrone and Liam Robinson. Each made inventive use of the full lineup of the Red Light Ensemble, a woodwind, string and piano septet conducted by Ted Hearne. Mr. Wollschleger and Mr. Raikhel were the boldest in their textural reconfigurations, but the gentler pieces — Mr. Cerrone’s soft-hued version of “Serenity (A Unison Chant)” and Mr. Robinson’s cheerful “Memories” — proved the most effective.
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Ensemble ACJW @ Zankel Music Center, Skidmore 2/10/12, Joseph Dalton, Albany Times-Union
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The most original section of “Histories” was Christopher Cerrone’s movement titled “Recovering.” After dispersing to surround the audience, the four wind players used their instruments to create pitch-less breathy columns of air. Meanwhile onstage, Skidmore played a furtive and beautiful solo on the vibraphones. The low key and eloquent writing was a welcome respite amidst an evening of high intensity music and drama.
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Brooklyn Composers Riff on Stravinsky, Allan Kozinn, The New York Times
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[Ensemble ACJW] has become a valuable part of New York’s musical fabric. That is especially true when it presents thoughtful, invigorating programs like the one at Weill Recital Hall on Tuesday. [...] Mr. Cerrone sent the woodwinds and brasses up the aisles, where they mostly produced toneless, breathy sounds to accompany the vibraphone and strings in “Recovering,” an eerie magnification of a fragment from the only moment of repose in the Stravinsky, the “Pastorale.”
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Fast Forward Austin II: The Reckoning, Andrew Sigler, New Music Box
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Christopher Cerrone’s Hoyt-Schermerhorn for piano and electronics was the final call for scores winner. A spare texture of slowly played and largely consonant chords served to describe the experience of waiting for the train at the piece’s namesake subway stop in Brooklyn. The chords split into a counterpoint between the hands, accented by the single tones as a chordal passacaglia of sorts developed in the left hand. I’m hesitant (as Cerrone was in describing the piece at the show) to go into much detail about the electronics except to say that they show up towards the end of the piece and are really quite effective.
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Broad Ambition: Hartford New Music Festival 2012, Andrew Sigler, New Music Box
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Owen Weaver presented two movements from Memory Palace by Chris Cerrone. In the first, he plucked a quirky diatonic melody on piano strings to an electronic background of crickets and drones. The second was performed on a “homemade marimba” of wooden planks, from which Weaver elicited a fluid melody in controlled rolls. The dry attacks of the mallets grew more pitched and resonant as the electronics amplified the inherent tones of the wood. This simple, but elegant, process continued for several minutes, undermined only by the conspicuous placement of a kick drum at the performer’s feet. The waiting instrument evoked questions of how the piece’s gradual development could accommodate this disparate object. Those questions were resolved abruptly; Weaver struck skin and wood simultaneously and the melody, with its ghosted electronic resonance, was suddenly gone in a percussive snap.
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New Music New Haven [print edition], Daniel Stephen Johnson, The New Haven Advocate, 12/3/2009
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Perhaps the most satisfying piece on the program was Christopher Cerrone’s opera. . . Invisible Cities, a series of arresting musical moments exploring Italo Calvino’s novel. The harmonies were consistently rich and the music thoughtfully illuminated the text.
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Music in Review [scan from the print], Nutida Music (Sweden), 3/2010
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Christopher Cerrone's album is characterized by a raw, unpolished sound. Cerrone is a doctoral student at Yale and the five short tracks are like little sonic fragments from every day life – the title "Five Days" thus feels appropriate. The timbres have a directness about them, whether it's the wind playing in chimes or atmospheric piano improvisations with superimposed textures. There's something mischievously "casual" about the whole production, while the combination of structural and unplanned elements result in a remarkable everyday poetry. [trans. Adrian Knight]
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SONiC Afterhours – Innovocal @ 92Y Tribeca, Jeremy Howard Beck, I Care if You Listen,
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…[T]he music didn’t disappoint. A short, tight program, Innovocal presented music by three composer-performers which falls somewhere between art song and singer-songwriter. Chris Cerrone’s Requiem [for KV]—a setting of a short, enigmatic text by Kurt Vonnegut, the piece’s namesake—layered Christiana Little’s delicate soprano on top of, below, and around itself, mainly on only three pitches: the first two notes of a C minor scale, and then the third an octave higher. The text hints obliquely at the planet’s response to the end of the world, or at least the end of life, and was written in response to the legendary author’s death in 2007. Remarkable, then, was the airy lightness and deep calm in the music, with the composer on live electronics.
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Red Light New Music at Rockwood Music Hall, Meg Wilhoite, Meg's New Music Blog, 11/7/11
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"Christopher’s piece, Hoyt-Schermerhorn, inspired by night-time NYC, and named after the subway station, combines warm, mournful chords in the lower register of the piano with jarring, sharp outbursts in the higher register. Having also spent quite a bit of time waiting in that particular station, I can say that Christopher’s piece captures beautifully the sense of desolation inherent in a sleepy local stop in Brooklyn."
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» Other Interviews and Articles:
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The Mix: 100 Composers Under 40, NPR, 4/17/11
Christopher Cerrone's Invisible Cities Gains Visibility This Weekend, WQXR, 5/13/11
Sleeping Giant Plays Well With Others, Residency at WQXR, 12/12/11
Invisible Cities Premieres Tonight!, Sequenza 21, 5/13/11
Chris Cerrone Interview, Composition Today, 4/06/10
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