Alarm Will Sound to perform free concert Sunday, October 19 at Public Media Commons

The acclaimed new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound* (pictured) will continue their third St. Louis season with a free concert featuring the world premiere of composer John Luther Adams' new work Ten Thousand Birds at 6:30 p.m., Sunday, October 19 at the new Public Media Commons in Grand Center.

Adams, who won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his orchestral piece Become Ocean, is known for creating large-scale works that embrace public spaces. Ten Thousand Birds, composed with a grant from New Music USA, is based on the songs of birds native to Missouri and the western limit of the eastern hardwood forest, and "fully embraces the orchestral range of colors in the instrumentation of Alarm Will Sound."

St. Louis artist Michael Eastman will provide projected visuals to accompany the music, and St. Louis electronic musicians Eric Hall and NNN Cook will do brief individual sets to open the show. Cook’s piece, written especially for this performance, will include live instrumentation provided by five members of Alarm Will Sound.

The Public Media Commons, which officially opened in September, is a 9,000-square-foot space flanked by large-screen video walls—two stories high—on two sides. In addition to the video walls, the space also includes a performance stage, interactive touch screens, and a window into one of the Nine Network studios.

The performance will be Alarm Will Sound’s second of the weekend here, as the group also will be featured in the “250 Years of St. Louis Music” concert on Friday, October 17 at the Sheldon Concert Hall, playing a new work by pianist Peter Martin, inspired by the music Miles Davis, and another written specifically for the occasion by AWS cellist and University of Missouri professor Stefan Freund.

Admission to the Public Media Commons concert is free and open to the public, with no reservations required.

*As always when StLJN mentions Alarm Will Sound, we include some sort of disclaimer like this one, noting that yr. humble StLJN editor has since 2010 been paid by the PR firm Slay & Associates for tasks including helping AWS with publicity for their concerts in St. Louis and Columbia, MO. That said, given StLJN's usual focus, I'd be writing about AWS even if I had no personal connection to them, so rather than omit any mention of a concert that readers might enjoy, you get the article plus this disclosure of the conflict of interest.