Carolina Eyck and Clarice Jensen: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert
Jan. 11, 2019, Tom Huizenga How do you play an instrument you never physically touch Watch Carolina Eyck. She s the first to bring a theremin to the Tiny Desk. The early electronic instrument with the slithery sound was invented almost 100 years ago by Leon Theremin, a Soviet scientist with a penchant for espionage. It looks like a simple black metal box with a couple of protruding antennae, but to play the theremin like Eyck does, with her lyrical phrasing and precisely fingered articulation, takes a special kind of virtuosity. I m really playing air, she tells the Tiny Desk audience. I don t touch anything while I The position of the hands influences electromagnetic fields to produce pitch and volume. Recognized as one of today s preeminent theremin specialists, Eyck writes her own compositions, such as the pulsating Delphic which opens the set, and she s got big shot composers writing theremin concertos for her. Joining Eyck for this twomusicianinone Tiny Desk is cellist Clarice Jen
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