by Mike Telin

When asked to create a work commemorating the 2013 centenary of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (Le Sacré du printemps), composer Vijay Iyer began to think about what lay at the heart of Stravinsky’s groundbreaking ballet score.

“Given that Le Sacre is a fantasy of the folkloric springtime ritual from some mythic ancient past in Russia, I thought it was an opportunity for us to deal in a reality-based way with that transformative period of springtime as it is expressed, celebrated, and experienced in Indian culture,” Iyer said during a telephone conversation from Portugal.

On October 19 at 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium, Vijay Iyer and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) will perform Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi, with film by Prashant Bhargava. The program will also include the premiere of an arrangement of The Rite of Spring by Cliff Colnot. The concert is presented in conjunction with the Museum’s exhibition, Art and Stories from Mughal India. [Read more…]