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Golden Hornet Project knows the future
Golden Hornet Project showed us what the future of indie classical music Sunday night at their sold-out concert at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz.
Or maybe Sunday night was what the future of classical music should like: An excited multi-generational crowd. Compelling live video accompaniment. Premieres by living composers.
And, oh yeah — there was beer and vegan cupcakes. Maybe that was why the gig sold out days in advance.
Golden Hornet co-founders Graham Reynolds and Peters Stopschinski took their decade-long efforts as indie composers and musicians to a new level last year when they transformed Golden Hornet into a full-fledge 501(c)(3) non-profit. Sunday was the celebration of that: 10 years of composing, playing and presenting new music and the first year of a whole new venture. Joining Reynolds and Stopschinski in the celebration was the inimitable Tosca String Quartet, themselves bold and adventurous musicians as equally accomplished on the symphony stage as in a live club.
Of course, staging the concert at a casual movie house known for its food and drink service at your seat, was the concert’s first important statement - not every composed music concert needs to take place in the austere rigidity of the concert hall. And the amplified quartet worked just fine for the program of eclectic new compositions. Behind the quartet, live video projections of the musicians — a real-time animation by local artists Lee Webster, Paul Baker, and Tyler Hardy — added moody vibrancy.
Like they have from the git-go, Reynolds and Stopschinski shared the bill with other composers. Most notably was Gabriel Prokofiev, the London-based composer and DJ, grandson of famed Sergei Prokofiev. Tosca delivered a deftly polished version of Prokofiev the contemporary’s haunting yet cerebral String Quartet 2. (Prokofiev plays SXSW March 20 with a showcase of his label Nonclassical.)
Austin musicians Tina Marsh, Josh Robbins, Emily Marks and Lauren Larson also had compositions on the bill. But it was the work of Reynolds and Stopschinski that shone. Both showed their talents crafting gorgeous, mesmirizing melodies (Reynold’s “The Ship ar the Bottom of the Sea”). Both knit strains classical, jazz, pop, rock, dance music and just about every other genre seamlessly together (Stopschinski’s String Quartet 2).
Most importantly for us, both know how to bust down barriers around composed new classical music so that everyone can find a way in.
Finally.
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