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SOUNDSTREAMS PRESENTS
A WORLD PREMIERE VERSION OF “CLAPPING MUSIC”
FROM ATOM EGOYAN, STEVE REICH, RUSSELL HARTENBERGER
AT STEVE REICH: Now & Then on MARCH 25, 8 PM, Meridian Arts Centre

March 6, 2023 // Toronto, ON – Lawrence Cherney, Founding Artistic Director, Soundstreams, today announced a special programming update for STEVE REICH: Now & Then on March 25: a new version of Reich’s legendary piece Clapping Music, conceived and directed by filmmaker Atom Egoyan, featuring Steve Reich on film and Russell Hartenberger in live performance, shot by director of photography Cam Davis.

“Steve Reich often performs this work with legendary Toronto percussionist Russell Hartenberger but unfortunately he can’t attend our March concert to perform it live,” said Cherney. “Atom had a brilliant idea for the next best thing: film Reich (or at least his hands!) in studio performing the ostinato part to project it in the George Weston Recital Hall with Russell performing the other part live. This stunning new work is but one part of our very special one-night-only event celebrating Reich’s 86th birthday with an evening of unparalleled performances. It’s an historic occasion!”

The world premiere of this new version of Clapping Music, originally released in 1972, joins two notable Reich works already announced for March 25 – Drumming and Reich/Richter.

The March 25th program opens with a Soundstreams 40th anniversary fanfare, A Fanfare for Spaces Between Time, by composer and turntablist SlowPitchSound (Cheldon Paterson), inspired by Stravinsky’s Fanfare for a New Theatre, the work that opened Soundstreams’ first season in June 1982. The new world premiere work, A Fanfare for Spaces Between Time, commissioned by Soundstreams, features SlowPitchSound on turntables with trumpeters Émilie Fortin and Amy Horvey.

Tickets for STEVE REICH: Now & Then are available now. The concert takes place at 8 p.m. on March 25, 2023, at the George Weston Recital Hall, Meridian Arts Centre in North York, in partnership with TO Live.

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Soundstreams | Soundstreams.ca

Soundstreams exists to foster Canadian music on the national and international stage. Soundstreams is the country’s leading company in realizing that goal. Under the leadership of Founding Artistic Director Lawrence Cherney the company has commissioned over 170 new works, and programmed hundreds of unique and compelling concerts including chamber music up to chamber orchestra, choral and vocal music, music theatre/opera and seven highly successful themed international festivals. Soundstreams engages a broad spectrum of audiences through the Main Stage, outreach and education programs that include the community-based Encounters series, a development program for young composers–RBC Bridges, and touring. Recent tours include Claude Vivier’s Musik für das Ende, Two Odysseys: Pimooteewin / Gállábártnit and Huang Ruo’s Book of Mountains and Seas. In the last year alone, Soundstreams touring productions have appeared in New York, London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Hamburg and Berlin. They’ve received rave reviews from the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.

Contact: Katie Saunoris | KSPR | [email protected]

Media Gallery: https://soundstreams.ca/press-room/

Still photo of Steve Reich’s hands by Cam Davis.

Credits for the new version of Clapping Music Project: Steve Reich, Music and Performer on
Film; Russell Hartenberger, Live Performer; Atom Egoyan, Concept and Direction; Cam
Davis, Director of Photography; Dennis Patterson, Audio Mixer; and Chris Tin, Recording
Engineer.