Different Trains (Steve Reich) - The Playground Ensemble

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steve Reich helped to redefine music in the mid-twentieth century with his minimalist innovations. His 1988 work Different Trains, for string quartet and pre-recorded performance tape, contains Reich’s typical driving rhythms and highly repetitive structures. The impetus for the work was the Jewish American composer’s recollection of childhood cross-country train trips during World War II, and his later awareness that at the same time, trains were taking millions of Europeans to Nazi concentration camps. The piece includes pre-recorded samples of both train sounds and interviews with Holocaust survivors.

Different Trains by Steve Reich

Sarah Whitnah - Violin
Anna Morris - Violin
Donald Schumacher - Viola
Richard VonFoerster - Cello

3/15/15 - House Concert - Denver, CO