Liza White, composer
© David Gottlieb 2011
Liza White's "Zin zin zin zin" ... employs inventive techniques such as dead bow-stops and a crunchy harmonic palette of cluster-based chords to create the feeling that we are experiencing pitchless grunts and shouts rather than musical lines. This is the shortest work recorded here and also the most kinetic; the music is passed around the quartet like a superball with great virtuosity, only to slink away at the end in four breathless puffs of sound that mimic the work's opening. It's a tour de force of quartet writing that manages to make a vivid impression in under four minutes.
newmusicbox.com 12/3/13
"Her piece “Step!” absorbs hip-hop and the synchronized form from which it takes its name, her “Ballad of the Mean Angry Jazz Hater Monster!” likewise draws from the genere claimed by its title, and her elegant “Groove” series suggests a melodically incisive derivation of minimalism — all accomplished with an acquisitiveness that is refreshingly lacking in quotation marks."
disquiet.com 6/27/12
"Zin zin zin zin sounds like "not-quite-human intelligent beings yelling at each other"..."
Chicago Music Blog 6/27/13
"Step!... opens with suspended strings and arhythmic accents from horns and percussion, before the crux of it hits: a hard, almost robotic, ever surprising shuffle. (For the record, this is a website where “robotic” is a compliment.) The strings and horns are extensions of, compatriots of, the drums, the whole thing syncopated like Leonard Bernstein or Alex North at their most rhythmically vibrant and succinct."
NEWS:
October 3, 2012: It's amazing what can happen in a year. On September 22nd, the Chicago Composers' Orchestra performed my piece Step! at Ganz Hall. This concert was my first performance in Chicago! It was a pleasure to meet and work with conductor Matthew Kasper and all of the musicians, who learned to perform choreographed step-team moves.... CONTINUE READING
October 3, 2012: It's amazing what can happen in a year. On September 22nd, the Chicago Composers' Orchestra performed my piece Step! at Ganz Hall. This concert was my first performance in Chicago! It was a pleasure to meet and work with conductor Matthew Kasper and all of the musicians, who learned to perform choreographed step-team moves.... CONTINUE READING
