Terry Riley has always had a propensity for cosmic whimsy. As such, and given the fluidity of his work over the last decades, it comes as no surprise that his contribution to flautist Claire Chase’s multi-decade Density 2036 project arrived not in the form of Sibelius-drafted PDFs but as a colourful sketchbook of caricatures, flying creatures, and doodled marginalia.
Expectedly, Riley’s non-conformist approach resonated deeply with Chase’s vision of a future flute repertoire – one that lives outside the rigid boundaries of classical music academia.
Fittingly, The Holy Liftoff spends most of its time in breezy motion and joyous buoyancy, where the eight-part flute chorus, multi-tracked by Chase, and JACK Quartet’s strings generate…