British minimalist composer Michael Nyman and his twelve member band gave a concert at Charles' Church (Kaarli kirik) in Tallinn, Estonia on 29th of November 2007. The concert was billed as the opening event of the annual Dark Nights Film Festival (Pimedate Ööde Filmifestival) in Estonia. For the night, Michael Nyman Band performed a set containing the well known compositions from Nyman's movie soundtracks. They opened with two numbers from The Draughtsman's Contract, "Chasing Sheep is Best Left To Shepherds" as well as "An Eye for Optical Theory", both with significantly more orchestral sound than on the original recordings. Pieces from Wonderland and Prospero's Books followed and these were among Nyman's most interesting pieces, each of them showcasing the composer's hypnotic, repetitive, rhythmically sustained and multi-layered scoring at its finest. Nyman also performed solo pieces from The Piano, including one of his most well known themes called "The Heart Asks Pleasure First". Finally the group rendered selections from Drowning By Numbers.
The sound quality was fair, but it left a bit desired in terms of clarity. The quieter songs sounded fine, but the more orchestrated pieces sounded a bit unclear. Although all the instruments were heard to some extent, some of these didn't cut through enough to display their tonal character in their whole. Given how Nyman's band with its twelve members can sound very orchestral for a group that one would expect to sound more chamber like, they certainly deserve better acoustics and sound balancing in order to make their sound more appreciated. Nonetheless, the public's reception to the performance was so enthusiastic that the band couldn't help it but play not only an encore, but three of them. First they played some more band pieces, and the final encore was yet another Nyman solo piano composition. All in all, a pretty good live concert.
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