Review: Julia Wolfe’s ‘unEarth’ Is Crowded Out by Multimedia

The New York Philharmonic has been trying to incorporate multimedia into its performances at David Geffen Hall this season, with mixed success. Although the multimedia has been sensitively rendered, it has often detracted from the experience of the music. This was the case with “unEarth,” the opening of two weeks of ecological programming, composed by Julia Wolfe. The second movement showcased a mix of sounds, including chattering, antiphonal choral music and percussion indebted to gamelan tradition. The piece seamlessly transitioned from solemn orchestral writing to powerful tutti riffing. However, the accompanying projections were far less imaginative than the score, simply presenting a slideshow of words for “tree” in different languages. In the third movement, the projections of portraits featuring members of the Young People’s Chorus were “serious, but a bit too obvious to be moving.” The entire concert was somewhat muddled, and the random pairing of “unEarth” with Sibelius’s Violin Concerto did not help. The focus in next week’s program will be solely on the music.

Author: OpenAI