Acts of Beauty • Exit no Exit

Acts of Beauty • Exit no Exit
photograph by Michael Nyman design by Russell Mills and Michael Webster
Studio album by Michael Nyman
Released	July 21, 2006 (UK) May 27, 2008 (United States)
Recorded	2004 (Acts of Beauty)
Genre	art song, contemporary classical, chamber music, minimalism
Language	Italian English
Label	MN Records
Producer	Michael Nyman
Michael Nyman chronology
Six Celan Songs • The Ballad of Kastriot Rexhepi (2006) Acts of Beauty • Exit no Exit (2006) Nyman Brass (2006)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
The Guardian
The Independent
Sequenza 21	(mixed)

Acts of Beauty • Exit no Exit is the 55th album by Michael Nyman, the eighth on his own label, and the third of these to consist entirely of previously unrecorded work. He does not perform on the album, but composed and produced it. Acts of Beauty is a song cycle with texts by various writers commenting on the nature of art and beauty. It is performed by Cristina Zavalloni and Sentieri Selvaggi, conducted by Carlo Boccadoro. Exit no Exit was originally a vocal work for John Motson called Beckham Crosses, Nyman Scores, in tribute to the English association football team. Here, the vocal part is rewritten for bass clarinet, and played by Andrew Sparling of the Michael Nyman Band with the Nyman Quartet: Gabrielle Lester, Catherine Thompson, Kate Musker, and Tony Hinnigan.

Acts of Beauty features settings of material by Vincenzo Cartari, Kurt Schwitters, subject of Nyman's opera, Man and Boy: Dada, and Dziga Vertov, director of Man with a Movie Camera, a film he scored at the behest of the British Film Institute. "Marulla's Hobby" is about measuring erections.