Review: Glenn Kotche and eighth blackbird at The Harris Theater

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 20, 2008 6:20PM

Honestly? Tuesday night we were totally stoked to see Titus Andronicus at Reggie's, but at the last minute we realized just how foolish we would be to pass up a chance to see what would probably be a one-time only event with Glenn Kotche joining forces with modern classicists eighth blackbird at The Harris theater.

Sure enough we were rewarded with a stellar performance including a jaw dropping solo rendition of "Monkey Chant" by Kotche and a vertiginous reading of Frederic Rzewski's "Les Moutons de Panurge" by eighth blackbird that knocked the audience on its collective ass. Kotche arranged most of the evening's pieces, and his read on Common's "The Corner" performed by pianist Lisa Kaplan was both abstract and revelatory. The evening's most touching moment came only moments before, when eighth blackbird performed Kotche's "Double Fantasy," with Kotche slipping out the side stage-door to sit in the aisle and take the performance in from the audience. The only moment that threatened to unbalance the evening's string of powerfully affecting performances was the punishingly pounding closing piece, Louis Andriessen's "Workers Union," but even that fit in as a final exclamation point to a truly remarkable evening.