Concert review: Joshua Roman is riveting, with or without cello

Joshua Roman rivets the audience at Seattle's Town Hall — even without his cello. A review of TownMusic's season opener by Sumi Hahn. By Sumi Hahn Special to The Seattle Times Concert Review | Here's how compelling a musician Joshua Roman is: He doesn't even need to play his cello. All he did was clap his hands, and the audience at Town Hall on Thursday night was riveted. The piece he clapped, with clarinetist Bill Kalinkos, was Steve Reich's "Clapping Music," a crunchy and fun duet whose phasing rhythms and revolving percussive patterns brought to mind the sounds of popular performance group Stomp. However delightful that little novelty was, it was nothing compared to the piece which opened the first concert of TownMusic's 2008-09 season, George Crumb's Sonata for Solo Cello. Roman's virtuosic technique and quiet intensity... [read full story]