Corey Hamm was praised ounce again for his performance of The People United will Never Be Defeated! at Spectrum’s Rzewski Festival concert opening last Sunday evening.
Here are some excerpts from the New York Classical Review:
The People United is a stirring work, always worth going out of one’s way to experience. Hamm has recorded it, an album that has earned the composer’s praise, and he showed understanding of and commitment to the music.
After the opening Chilean protest theme, Hamm released a torrent. [...] Variation 5, with its series of fortissimo chords followed by the frozen ringing of the piano strings, brought everything into coordination.
What followed was a stirring performance that dug deep into the expressionism of the music. Rzewski’s well-earned reputation as a political artist can overshadow the beautiful, complex communication in his composing. The protest song is a vehicle for impassioned and harmonically rich variations—some take the theme apart and rebuild it but most are quasi-improvisational explorations that are close to the world of Schumann and Chopin.
Learn more about Corey Hamm here.