PuSh 2017: Four Thousand Holes

Outside of jazz, one doesn't often think of the piano and drums going together. But as Richard reminded me last night at the Fox Cabaret as we waited for the start of Four Thousand Holes, the concert showcasing the immense talents of musicians Vicky Chow and Ben Reimer that was co-presented by Music on Main and the PuSh Festival, the piano is technically a percussion instrument.

Certainly composer Vincent Ho made the most of that symbiotic relationship between the instruments as Chow pounded away at the keyboard in his Kickin' It, keeping up measure for measure with the impossible beats thrown down by Reimer. Things got a little more mellow with MoM composer-in-residence Nicole Lizée Softcore, her tribute to Prince, which was accompanied by a very moving video sequence. By the time the musicians got to John Luther Adams' Four Thousand Holes I was positively blissed out; the intensely melodic work, which mostly has Chow playing at the higher, treble end of the keyboard, and which features Reimer on xylophone, is the sonic equivalent of watching a lava lamp, and it sent the audience out the doors on a wave of calm.

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