Giya Kancheli: Little Imber

Copy at Case Memorial Library
Contents: Amao Omi, for mixed choir and saxophone quartet (Nederlands Kamerkoor, Raschèr Saxophone Quartet; Klaas Stok, conductor); Little Imber, for small ensemble, voice, children's and men's choirs (Mamuka Gaganidze, voice; Zara Miminoshvili, guitar; Matrix Ensemble, Rustavi Choir, Children's Choir; Nika Memanishvili, conductor, keyboard).
Duncan Sheik, singer/songwriter/composer, told the New York Times: "I’ve listened to a lot of ECM recordings since I was a teenager, the slightly avant-garde jazz kind of stuff, the 20th-century classical music. Then ECM put out a lot of the Arvo Pärt recordings; that stuff is so powerful. On 'Little Imber' (ECM), Giya Kancheli creates these harmonic structures that are so magnificent and huge, almost terrifying. His music can be really scary. It’s totally inspiring — wow, this is what you can do with harmony. It’s choral, too. Like Arvo Pärt, there’s a sense that it’s liturgical almost, that it’s dealing with really deep human pathos. Like you’re getting the dark night of the soul writ large on the canvas of the music" (Winter Miller, "Playlist," 1/25/09).