Shapes: New Music for Percussion

SHAPES: NEW MUSIC FOR PERCUSSION RBC Percussion Department Directed by Toby Kearney Tuesday 14 December 2021 The Bradshaw Hall Birmingham City University

Programme

Programme Notes

Patrick Case Resolution

Patrick Case Resolution

Fatou Sourang Red Light, Green Light Maarten Benschop Slavoj Says Antonio Daprile Piccola Suite Ambivalente Camille de Beus playtime for an only child Peter Bell Overheard While Ordering Coffee Tristan Kersten Get a Move On Catherine Mole SHAPES Phillip Matty Sporadic Fiona Troon “Witness”/“Testigo” Chan Chak Hang In Meditation

Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Percussion Department Hsuan Wu Iris van den Bos Nick Cowling Aidan Hammond Tom Bennett Cathryn Lynch Andrew Woolcock Eva Laverty Kai Cooper Daisy Davis Alex Walton Directed by Toby Kearney

This composition was written in the stillness of the early morning in a large space (The Lab) on a wonderful and beautifully maintained Steinway grand piano. In this setting the rich notes from the instrument resonated in the wide space around it. The sound and the atmosphere it created inspired the composer to find the music and to imagine it being played on the equally resonant vibraphone and cymbals.

Fatou Sourang Red Light, Green Light Based on the concept of unpredictability, Red light, Green light explores the power of silence, intending to create a “comfortable uncomfortable” atmosphere for the audience.

Written for bongos, tumba, two tom-toms and kick drum, this piece presents a constant rhythmical pattern, which is interrupted by a moment of silence every once in a while, creating intentional confusion and tension that build up till the very end of the piece.

The title is inspired by the recent Netflix series Squid Games, in which the characters find themselves playing children’s games, such as red light-green light, to win a huge amount of money. In my piece, I associate the moment of motion with sound and the moment of stillness with silence.

Maarten Benschop Slavoj Says If there is anything good that has come out of the last year and a half, for me it’s the YouTube algorithm deciding to recommend me videos by a quirky Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek.

Other than his big body of writing work, his sense of humour and (over) analysis of pop culture in his film such The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (2006) and The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (2012) is a perfect for short videos. Combining this with my interest in the fluidity in rhythm and tempo in speech is what created this piece.

Rather than making a Brian Ferneyhough piece with ridiculously complex rhythms this work takes the speech as a base line, written out relatively simple and the drums uses Žižek’s syntax to create a faux drum solo, accompanied by brake drums, wood blocks, temple drums and marimba that play with him or against

him. Rather than sticking to a very strict grid this piece celebrates the inconsistencies and counter intuitiveness of human speech and retroactively turns it into a piece of music.

Antonio Daprile Piccola Suite Ambivalente This work was born out of my current interest in abrupt changes in music and art. It stems from the idea of durezze et ligature prevalent in the Italian Baroque, which is characterised by the alternation of harsh harmonies (durezze) and sudden resolutions (ligature). By loosely interpreting this concept, I am creating works by superimposing contrasting sections which might seem unrelated when first glancing at the score, as they present vastly different tempi, dynamics and structures, but are actually connected and related to each other through shared intervallic and motivic material.

Camille de Beus playtime for an only child playtime for an only child is a percussion piece that focuses on movement and the performer’s body – specifically the hands. As such, choreography plays a key part in the piece. The intent was to play with the idea of boundaries between movement and sound as well as the human body as the origin of music. The title is loosely biographical – referencing childhood hand-clapping games and the throes of having to entertain oneself as an only child.

Peter Bell Overheard While Ordering Coffee A recounting of a social interaction I overheard while ordering coffee.

Tristan Kersten Get a Move On For me the time restrictions of this project provided a challenge as my compositions are typically much longer and more expansive than this. Lately however I’ve been very interested in writing more condensed music so this was an excellent opportunity in that regard. Early inspirations for the piece included the works of Scott Bradley and Carl Stalling, the marimba works of Casey Cangelosi and just following marimba scores in general to learn how other composers approached the instrument. This led to the gestural nature of the opening and then

it was simply a matter of fully exploring that character/material.

reported during only the first month and a half of the crisis:

• More than 12,500 people required emergency health treatment at a public hospital.

SHAPES is a piece composed for a solo • At least 347 people sustained eye percussionist using between two and six injuries, some of which included the permanent unpitched instruments. SHAPES is based around loss of vision in one or both eyes through use of four rhythmic cells and the idea of creating a a firearm. physically engaging performance. The aim of • There were 5,558 registered cases of the piece is to push the performer into thinking institutionalised violence, including against 834 outside of traditional notation and focus on the children or adolescents. visual performance.

• 246 cases of sexual violence were registered.

Phillip Matty Sporadic • There were innumerous incidents of the Sporadic is a piece for a solo percussionist disproportionate use of force by police against and is written for marimba, crotales and protestors such as punching, kicking and almglocken. This piece started its life one beating them with batons, including after they evening while sitting in the hustle and bustle had been detained, as well as driving vehicles of the café. I started writing this piece in my into them. first few weeks at the Conservatoire. It was a • The use of tear gas was disproportionate big change in my life and this piece reflects and included the firing of canisters from the chaotic nature of this initial experience. grenade launchers directly at people, in order This piece offers a technical challenge for the to cause bodily harm rather than as a dispersal performer with fast rhythmic passages and an tool. overarching melodic structure.

• 2,300 police officers were also injured during this period of the protests.

Fiona Troon “Witness”/“Testigo” The composer would like to thank the following “Witness” is a piece written to describe the people for their valuable media contributions to real events of the 2019-20 social unrest in accompany this performance: Chile, as witnessed by the composer who was PHOTOS: Eduardo Perea, Jorge Salgadoliving in the capital Santiago at the time. On Williamson, Monzeratt Miranda.

18 October 2019, thousands of protestors took AUDIO: Monzeratt Miranda, anonymous to the streets shouting the slogan “evade” contributor. in objection to a sudden rise in metro fare This piece is dedicated to my colleagues and prices. As the protests rapidly spread across friends in Santiago, Chile. “Con mucho cariño.” the city and country, it became clear that they represented a deeper widespread frustration Chan Chak Hang In Meditation at wealth inequality, lack of social welfare, the This piece was inspired by Japanese over-privatisation of the economy and other shakuhachi music. It was used by the monks long-term systemic effects of the Pinochet of the Zen Buddhism in the practice of blowing era. The arguably heavy-handed response of meditation (suizen, 吹禅) since the Edo era the government included two weeks of martial (1603-1868). Breathing in shakuhachi music law, and resulted in further widespread and works as a measurement of phasing. I used intensive violence. There were innumerous this feature to compose this piece. The wooden reports of serious human rights violations and material of marimba links to wooden fish (also the authorities allegedly operated with a very known as wooden temple block), an instrument high degree of impunity. that originated from East Asia involving the The following statistics from Amnesty’s report recitation of Buddhist texts. Playing this piece “Eyes on Chile: Police violence and command is more than just performance, which is also an responsibility during the period of social unrest” demonstrate some of the human impact inner meditation.

Catherine Mole SHAPES