75th anniversary of Jeunesses Musicales: Different Trains + WTC 9/11

Classical and contemporary music lovers will be familiar with MP4 Quartet, a string quartet whose members dare to take a risk and explore new realms of creativity. The young MP4 Quartet performs Different Trains, a composition by Steve Reich in three movements for string quartet and tape. Written in 1988, it contrasts Reich’s experience of travelling by train in the US to visit his separated parents, who lived in New York and Los Angeles, with European Jews, many of whom were on trains to the death camps. It mixes in sound loops, samples and techniques like “speech melody”, which Reich invented especially for this piece. One encounters the technique again in WTC 9/11, Reich’s commemoration of the attacks on September 11, 2001.

Flagey, Fédération des Jeunesses Musicales Wallonie-Bruxelles, Ars Musica, « Territoires de la Mémoire »