Neil Rolnick

Alan Kossin
NYTimes Review:

Neil Rolnick has been a prolific and inventive composer of electronic music for the last quarter-century, but lately he has been revisiting the joys of acoustic instruments. He has not abandoned technology entirely: in the title work, scored for Western string quartet and four Chinese string instruments, comparatively light electronic processing of the eight string lines adds a ninth strand, used sparingly.

“The Economic Engine” (2008) is an idiosyncratic four-movement dialogue between antiquity and modernity, and its charm is in the blend, clash and interplay of Asian and Western timbres, gestures and textures. The Chinese instruments usually sing in their native accents (without using traditional themes) but stretch toward Western styles too, and at times the two sound worlds are juxtaposed: a keening erhu line is supported by a vibrato-rich violin.