Rhythm Across Time

Academy of Ancient Music joins The Wave Quartet in an ingenious, audacious musical voyage across five centuries.

Centuries pass, but artistry is forever, and whether it’s 1726 or 2026, there’s nothing to match the voltage generated by a virtuoso performer at the absolute peak of their game. In this extraordinary, genre-crossing collaboration the Academy of Ancient Music meets marimba phenomenon Christoph Sietzen and his Wave Quartet. Sparks will fly.

‘The listener must be gripped and drawn into the flight path of the sounds,’ said Iannis Xenakis, and that’s the idea today: an adventure in musical time and space that ranges from the high baroque to the 1980s avant-garde; from the electrifying sonic patterns of Bach and Handel to the (surprisingly baroque) rhythmic rituals of Xenakis himself. These were composers who smashed boundaries and astonished the senses. We’ll aim for nothing less.

Antonio Bertali - Ciaccona in C major (arr. for marimbas and continuo)
Francesco Geminiani - Concerto Grosso No 12 ‘La Folia’, after Corelli Op 5
George Frederic Handel - Chaconne in G major, HWV 435 (arr. for marimbas)
Johann Sebastian Bach - Harpsichord Concerto in G minor, BWV 1058 (arr. for marimbas and strings)
Iannis Xenakis - Rebonds B for solo percussion
Constanzo Festa - Variations on ‘La Spagna’ - Contrapunto 46, 88, 77 and 108
Johann Sebastian Bach - Harpsichord Concerto in C major, BWV 1061 (arr. for marimbas and strings)