Youngstown State University Percussion Ensemble
Dr. Glenn Schaft-director & Tetsuya Takeno - assistant director
26 March 2009, Butler North, 8 p.m.
Three Pieces for Drum Quartet (1974-75) James Tenney (1934-2006)
1.
Wake – for Charles Ives
2.
Hocket – for Henry Cowell
3.
Crystal Canon – for Edgard Varëse
Each movement is scored for four drums; tenor
drums, bass drums, and snare drums respectively. Tenney utilizes rhythmic
themes, unique to each movement, that are either layered in counterpoint or
sometimes converge in unison textures. Notes by Glenn Schaft
O’Carolan Suite No. 2 (1989) Traditional Irish Melodies by Turlough O’Carolan
arr. Paul Henle
I.
Planxty Maguire
II.
O’Carolan’s Farewell
III.
O’Carolan’s Quarrel
IV.
Loftus Jones
Paul
Henle studied percussion with James Preiss at the Manhattan School of Music and
was a founding member of the Manhattan Marimba Quartet. At the same time he was
studying classical percussion, he was pursuing his interest in traditional
Irish music, playing bodhran and bones at sessions around New York City. Paul
plays with the Scottish dance band Tullochgorum, and with the Irish traditional
band Odd Men Out. Turlough O'Carolan was born in 1670 near
Nobber, County Meath and died in 1738. He was one of the last Irish harpers who
composed and his fame was not due to his skill with the harp but to his gift
for composition and verse. The works of Turlough O'Carolan survive only as
single-line melodies and interpretations of them are as rich and varied as the
artists who interpret them. Notes by Glenn Schaft
Group Improvisation – Mario Butera, Joshua
Colson, Cory Doran
Group Improvisation – Dan Danch, Matthew
Hayes, Kevin Rabold, Bob Young
Group Improvisation – Mike Farinelli, Dustin
May, Gino West, Gary White, Eric Zalenski
Once Removed (2003) John
Fitz Rogers (1963)
Cory Doran & Tetsuya Takeno
Once Removed is based on
a simple premise: two marimbists play the same or related music at a fairly
fast tempo, but they almost never play together. Individually, each performer
must execute fairly simple patterns with great rhythmic precision and to help,
each listens to a click track (not heard by the audience) over separate left
and right stereo channels. Though both click tracks proceed at the same tempo,
one track stays at a fixed distance behind the other, which means that one
performer is always slightly “behind” the other. When their patterns are
combined, the resulting mosaic is both very fast and quite complex. Musicians
are trained to communicate and to play together, yet in some ways this work
demands that the performers not listen to each other. Though the technology of
multiple click tracks creates new possibilities of texture and ensemble
precision, the trade-off in Once Removed
is that each player remains somewhat isolated from the instruments he or she
plays, and more importantly, musically separated from the other performer, like
two people trying to reach one another from opposite sides of a thin glass
pane. Notes by John Fitz Rogers
Dragoon (1999) Lynn
Glassock (b. 1946)
In late 16th-century Europe, a dragoon was a mounted soldier who
fought as a light cavalryman on attack and as a
dismounted infantryman on defense. The term
derived from his weapon, a species of carbine or short musket called the dragoon.
Glassock’s Dragoon is scored for a percussion octet
using four marimbas, various blocks of wood, tambourines, snare drums, bongos,
congas, maracas, log drums, tom toms, and shekere. Throughout, Glassock juxtaposes
traditional tribal and contemporary musical practices including numerous tribal-like
rhythms, various ethnic percussion instruments, complex tempo modulations, and
the marimbas to create dense and dissonant polyphonic textures within driving
rhythmic grooves. Notes by Glenn Schaft
Threads for Percussion Quartet (2005) Paul
Lansky (b. 1944)
1.
Prelude (Aria I)
2.
Recitative I
3.
Chorus I
4.
Aria II
5.
Recitative II
6.
Chorus II
7.
Aria III
8.
Recitative III
9.
Chorus III
10. Choral Prelude (Aria IV)
Threads, written for So Percussion in
2005, is a half-hour-long “cantata” for percussion quartet in ten short
movements. There are three “threads” that are interwoven in the piece: Arias
and Preludes that focus on the metallic pitched sounds of vibraphones,
glockenspiel, and metallic pipes; Choruses in which drumming predominates; and
Recitatives made largely from Cage-like “noise” instruments, bottles,
flowerpots, crotales, etc. The aims of the different threads are to highlight
the wide range of qualities that percussion instruments are capable of, from
lyrical and tender to forceful and aggressive, and weave them into one
continuous texture. The movements are performed without interruption. Notes by
Paul Lansky
Trio Per Uno (1995/99) Nebojsa Jovan Zivkovic (b. 1962)
I.
Meccanico
II.
Contemplativo
III.
Molto energico
The outer movements have some similarities in
manner and appear as if they would present a perfection of wildness in an
archaic ritual cult. The second movement has its own special lyric and
contemplative mood and serves as an isle of quietness between two volcanoes, in
both atmosphere and instrumentation. This music expresses the principle: three
bodies – one soul. Notes by Zivkovic
Personnel:
Graduate Assistant:
Tetsuya Takeno, Kanagawa-Ken,
Japan
Senior:
Mario Butera, Pittsburgh, PA
Cory Doran, Columbus, OH
Junior:
Kevin Rabold, Pittsburgh, PA
Dan Danch, New Wilmington, PA
Sophomore:
Joshua Colson, Transfer, PA
Robert Young, Austintown, OH
Eric Zalenski, Bloomingdale, OH
Freshmen:
Mike Farinelli, Cranberry Twsp., PA
Matthew Hayes, Coshocton, OH
Dustin May, Westerville, OH
Gino West, Poland OH
Gary White, Warren, OH
Special thanks to Avedis Zildijian, Remo,
ProMark. Dynasty, and Black Swamp Percussion for their product and
artist support.