Sun rings

"The decades-long partnership between composer Terry Riley and the Kronos Quartet continues - with a little help from NASA - on the brilliant new album, Sun Rings ... With Riley's Sun Rings compositions and the sounds gathered by Gurnett and NASA, we're all able to picture ourselves side-by-side with the music of the world beyond our own".

Read review

"... a composition that matches its central cosmological theme with music that is intimate and grand by turns, all tied together with the natural sounds of outer space. An ode to mankind's urge to explore, and a prayer for peaceful cooperation here on planet Earth".

Read review

"Terry Riley's collaborations with the Kronos Quartet have gained substantial audiences and continue to develop in interesting ways, even into Riley's old age. They can't be called minimalist even under a broad definition of the term, for they incorporate a wide range of influences. Perhaps none of those influences has been at once as exotic and yet as directly accessible as the use of actual electronic sounds from outer space in Sun Rings, recorded during missions of the Voyager and Galileo space probes ... Riley sums up the work's appeal neatly: "The intention [is] to let the sounds of space influence the string quartet writing and then to let there be an interplay between live 'string' and recorded 'space' sound." Sun Rings is thus a part of the larger genre of works that combine analog and electronic sounds, but it's a unique example that has a pictorial aspect any listener can grasp ... You can sample anywhere to hear the work's characteristic mixture of spooky and calmly warm. Highly recommended".

Read review

"Chamber choice: The Voyager 1 space probe, designed to explore the outer Solar System, was launched on 5 Septemer 1977. Twenty-five years later, NASA sought to mark the anniversary with a new commission incorporating space sounds ... The result 'Sun Rings' ... getting its first complete recording - is an intriguing, often moving paean to the twin mysteries of outer space and inner nature. Interweaving mysticism, science and art, and part-written in the aftermath of 9/11, two of its ten movements are choral prayers for universal peace ... It's a pity that the words sung by San Francisco choir Volti are largely submerged. But the singers' ardency is plain under their director Robert Geary".