The Desert Music of Steve Reich has been our theme music since the beginning. Now, for the first time, pianist Guy Livingston presents the complete composition.
In this episode of American Highways, we also hear Big Sky by Joan Tower, and Desert Highway, sung by Billy Southern.
AMERICAN HIGHWAYS EPISODE #40: DESERT MUSIC
Theme Music :
Steve Reich. The Desert Music (1984)
First Movement (Fast).
Chorus of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Members of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Michael Tilson Thomas & William Carlos Williams.
Nonesuch Records 79101.
Billy Southern
Desert Highway
Billy Southern
CD Baby 884501874526
Joan Tower
Big Sky
Chee-Yun, violin; André Emelianoff, cello; Joan Tower, piano
Naxos CD 8559215
Big Sky is a piece based on a memory of riding my horse “Aymara” around in the deep valley of La Paz, Bolivia. The valley was surrounded by the huge and high mountains of the Andes range; and as I rode I looked into a vast and enormous sky. It was very peaceful and extraordinarily beautiful. We never went over one of these mountains, but if we had, it might have felt like what I wrote in this piece.
—Joan Tower
Steve Reich
Desert Music
No. 1 – Fast (7:42)
No. 2 – Moderate (6:51)
No. 3a – Slow (6:06)
No. 3b – Moderate (6:10)
No. 3c – Slow (5:27)
No. 4 – Moderate (3:36)
No. 5 – Fast (10:11)
BBC Singers; Peter Eötvös, conductor. BBC Symphony Orchestra.
BBC Radio Classics – 15656 91692
LINK
Billy Southern’s Road to Sturgis CD
The Piano Guys, flying a piano onto the top of a desert cliff (nothing to do with this show, but I love it)