Canto ostinato

Simeon ten Holt’s Canto Ostinato feels like a long-lost cousin to some of the most beloved of American Minimalist compositions, pieces like Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians and Terry Riley’s In C. When you meet a previously unknown relative for the first time, you might be startled to discover mysterious family resemblances: physical and temperamental similarities—the shape of a nose, the sound of a laugh—have a funny way of stretching across borders, across generations.

That’s how listeners might feel when they encounter Canto Ostinato. This piece has the warmth, luminousness, and spaciousness of the best Minimalist compositions. It affords generous freedoms to the performers while also outlining an instantly recognizable musical world, a world of gently chiming pulses and profoundly satisfying shifts in harmony. The patiently changing light of this piece might evoke sacred music for some listeners; for others, it might seem to be inviting the listener to a collective meditation. Canto Ostinato, so beloved in the country where it was written and first performed, deserves to become equally beloved around the world.

-Matthew Aucoin

On the AMOC* Sandbox Collaboration

It seems appropriate that the centripetal pull of Canto Ostinato, drawing in performers and listeners alike, has also pulled together the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC*) and Sandbox Percussion. In much the same way as Canto Ostinato shares a kindred likeness with American Minimalist classics, these two organizations performing this work have their own mutual affinity. They also have their own distinct strengths. For Sandbox, that would be their fluency with minimalism, the genre that most thoroughly brought percussion forward from the back of the orchestra. This is the repertoire that Sandbox cut their teeth on—a first language of sorts. To complement that, AMOC* brings a fluency with long-form artistic storytelling. Canto Ostinato may not be an opera in the conventional sense, but it is an evening-length journey with an epic’s potential for arc and emotion.

What bonds these two organizations is a common bedrock of founding principles: both AMOC* and Sandbox are expressions of the people and relationships they comprise. This prioritization of people allowed the development process to feel less like rehearsal and more like a celebration—and Canto Ostinato was the perfect soundtrack for this celebration. More than anything, this is what is being shared in the AMOC*Sandbox collaboration on Canto Ostinato: the ecstatic feeling of gratitude to be making music together.

-Jonny Allen