{"id":1703,"date":"2013-10-14T18:00:40","date_gmt":"2013-10-14T17:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geraldgarcia.com\/wordpress\/?p=1703"},"modified":"2013-10-15T13:14:27","modified_gmt":"2013-10-15T12:14:27","slug":"adrian-utley-in-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/?p=1703","title":{"rendered":"Adrian Utley in C"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Adrian Utley<\/strong>\u00a0is an established guitarist thanks to his longstanding and impressive (yet still rather slim) catalogue of work with Bristol based band Portishead<\/strong>.<\/a><\/p>\n

This month he \u00a0brings together an orchestra of electric guitar players to interpret Terry Riley’s <\/a>‘In C’ on a new CD released by Invada<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Written in 1964,\u2018In C\u2019 is one of the most influential pieces of music from the 20th Century<\/strong>, it established minimalism as a music genre. In C’s simple musical rules – 53 musical phrases in C and no duration – allow for infinite variations.<\/p>\n

Utley’s impressive Guitar Orchestra is augmented by organs and a clarinet making for a mesmeric sound experience. The Guitar Orchestra consists of 24 musicians from Bristol<\/strong>: 19 guitarists including John Parish (PJ Harvey), Thought Forms, and Jim Barr (Portishead live band); 4 organs and a bass clarinet<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Composed in 1968 by Terry Riley<\/a>,\u00a0In C<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0is a minimalist exercise of sorts<\/strong>, with its roots spreading into aleatoric music due to the large element of chance and interpretation in its score. The arrangement itself is particularly non-traditional<\/strong>, made up of 53 individual short phrases instead of your standard score of music that runs straight from beginning to end. Focussed on the ideas of crescendo\/diminuendo, polyphony and polyrhythm, Riley’s score honours interpretation and encourages performers to actually stop playing sometimes and listen<\/strong> carefully to the piece’s progress:<\/p>\n