Recent Press
[Friar’s] big ideas concern the rise and fall of human civilization, the tininess of our individual lives, perhaps the meaninglessness of it all?
And yet, here are these beautifully crafted pieces that we can immerse our ears into and forget – or release – our grief.
– Max Christie
1/29/2022 – An Earful, Best of 2021: Classical
There's also a swirling business to some sections, that seems to have a psychological impetus, like a Bernard Herrmann soundtrack for a Hitchcock film. There is, in fact, a programmatic element to the eight-movement work, with Friar calling it "a rumination on the lifespan of civilizations, on our own small place in the larger rhythm of the world." But you will be excused for thinking your own thoughts while listening, or just for admiring the beauty of the sounds and the adventurousness of the artists involved…
– Jeremy Shatan
Friar is more interested in the slow burn of history, rendered through his meticulous ear for timing and pace… “Before and After” ends with the ten-and-a-half-minute “Done Deal,” a spiral of dread and despair that at times feels like Baroque lamentation before slowly giving way to a pixellated agitation. It’s the existential void I want to crawl into like a hot bath on a cold night.
– Olivia Giovetti
From time to time it erupts unexpectedly and aggressively, as if that is ultimately the defining characteristic of man as a species. In the hands of the NOW Ensemble, that duplicity sounds completely convincing… In the concluding ‘Done Deal’ there is an insistent despair about the fate that humanity is inevitably heading towards. Heartbreaking beauty.
– RVP
12/15/2021 – The Big Takeover, REVIEW: NOW Ensemble/Sean Friar – Before and After (New Amsterdam)
Friar’s music… beguiles, bewilders, and beautifies…
– Michael Toland
12/10/2021 – New Sounds with John Schaefer, WNYC New York Public Radio, Unusual New Chamber Ensembles
Written by Rome Prize-winning composer Sean Friar, the work is called Before and After, inspired by the city of Rome, and the way that it just keeps on building on itself, with the centuries of humanity that has come before, right in the midst of new constructions, living in both the past and present.
11/18/2021 – 15 Questions, Interview with Sean Friar of NOW Ensemble: Pacing and Possibilities
11/18/2021 – Palisadian Post, An Ear for Music (interview with Sean Friar)
10/1/2021 – New Amsterdam Records, Press Release: Before and After (NOW Ensemble/Sean Friar)