Free Lecture: Steve Reich’s “Different Trains” for string quartet and tape with David Yang, Artistic Director: Newburyport Chamber Music Festival

THURSDAY, AUGUST 10, 3:00 – 4:15 pm 
Lecture 
FREE EVENT

Steve Reich’s “Different Trains” for string quartet and tape with David Yang, Artistic Director: Newburyport Chamber Music Festival

Newburyport Public Library, Newburyport, MA

Violist David Yang walks you through Steve Reich’s iconic work for string quartet and recorded voices and is a featured work for the 2017 Newburyport Chamber Music Festival. During World War II, Reich was a small Jewish boy living in New York with his mother traveling often by train to Los Angeles to visit his father. In later life he made a connection between his own train trips at that time and Jews in Europe who had very different associations with railroads. The piece uses recordings of interviews Reich made of American train engineers from that era along with the reminiscences of holocaust survivors and historic sounds of trains in both America and Europe. The piece is a paean to the golden era of train travel in the US, a harrowing tale of barbarity, and ultimately recognition of our own common humanity.