Cracking the Code

In Cracking the Code, new music superstars ACME and Third Coast Percussion present two major works by leading American composer David T. Little: companion pieces that explore the tension between the individual, secrecy, and state violence.

Haunt of Last Nightfall, a visceral “ghost play in two acts” for percussion quartet and electronics, examines America’s role in the 1981 massacre at El Mozote, El Salvador. AGENCY, for string quartet and electronics, questions individual autonomy, whether we are subject to unknown and powerful social and political forces. When paired together, The New York Times described the music as “forthright, visceral, bloody, with the intimacy and polish of a classical chamber ensemble but bulging with the loud, reverberant sweatiness of rock.”