Six Pianos

Six pianos all playing at once? That’s not something you hear every day. Six excellent pianists join forces for a hypnotic performance of Steve Reich’s Six Pianos. In this minimalist classic, the pianos start in unison, but the rhythmic patterns gradually begin to diverge. Our season composer Julia Wolfe has also written a piece for 12 hands, inspired by the iconic opening bars to Think, Aretha Franklin’s hit from the sixties. In Gay Guerilla, Julius Eastman refers to Bach’s chorale Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, interweaving minimal music with the power of his sexual identity to produce an exciting composition.