Evening Concert Series 2024 – 2025 Season
Sara M. Snell Music Theater Tuesday,April 8th at 7:30 PM
Crane Percussion Ensemble
Emma Gierszal, conductor
Robert Carl, Special Guest Composer
Aspen Tree Speaks (2023)
World Premiere
BrodieAinsworth, John McGrath, Tal Millas, Brandon Phelps,Angel Ren,Aidan Sherwood, Drew Spina, Julia Taylor, Vatressa Teamoh, Douglas VanSanford
Robert Carl (b. 1954)
Notes: In July 2023 I was at a family reunion in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, in the southern Rockies. The gathering was at a home which was part of a development, partly in nature, and partly in the anonymous American exurban environment. But just outsdie there was a single aspen tree, and I began to watch and listen to it for about an hour. The wind through its leaves created a constantly shifting and overlapping textural/timbral counterpoint that I found hypnotically compellIng. Over time, a model for a piece suggested itself. The recurrent and recombinant waves of sounds, transformed into musical motives and arranged registrally in analogy to the overtone series, became a sonic metaphor for the tree's song.
- Robert Carl
Sweet Dreams and Time Machines (2018)
Wyatt Calcote, Bailey Yerdon
Michael Burritt (b. 1962)
Notes: Sweet Dreams and Time Machines is dedicated to the memory of my friend, colleague and former Dean of the Eastman School of Music, Doug Lowry. There isn't a week that goes by at Eastman when I don't think of Doug. From the time I interviewed with him for the position at Eastman to Doug introducing me as "Buzz Saw" Burritt after a memorable performance with the Eastman Wind Ensemble in Chicago. (One of my most cherished memories with him.). Doug was a person who always allowed you to feel yourself in his presence through his warm demeanor and casual sense of humor. Being Dean seemed to resonate with him and he just seemed to enjoy being part of the special community at Eastman.
There are no real Time Machines, outside of science fiction novels and movies. True time machines are the memories we carry with us of people and moments shared. I found some memories so poignant that you can
almost step into them as though you are living that moment again. Sweet Dreams to those who have passed, touched us forever, and live eternally in our Time Machines.
- Michael Burritt
Heads
Up! (2003)
Aidan Sherwood, coach BrodieAinsworth,Aaron McGowan, John McGrath, Douglas VanSanford
Mark Ford (b. 1958)
Notes: Heads Up! is a companion piece for my earlier composition Head Talk (1987). This new composition is an excursion into the further possibilities of a five-member percussion ensemble with only standard drum heads. The Heads Up! ensemble is required to perform primarily on timpani heads (or bass drum heads) and frame drums as they move around the stage. My sincere appreciation to Mr. Ju and The Ju Percussion Group from Taipei, Taiwan who commissioned Heads Up! Mr. Ju's invitation and the many ensembles and audiences around the world who have enjoyed Head Talk made me realize that there was still a little fun left in drum heads!
- Mark Ford
Paradigm from Perspectives (2019)
Brief Pause
Wyatt Calcote, Jack Carola, Matthew Puhlman, Elijah Sutton
Jlin, arr. Sean Connors (b. 1987)
Notes: Jlin (Jerrilynn Patton) is a producer and composer based in Gary, Indiana. Her unique and evolving electronic sound is rooted in Chicago’s iconic footwork style, with additional influences ranging from Nina Simone to Igor Stravinsky. Jlin’s work assembles evocative and vivid sounds into a musical style that she describes as “clean, precise, and unpredictable.” Her debut album “Dark Energy” was released to critical acclaim in 2015, and her second album “Black Origami” in 2017 to rave reviews from NPR Music and Pitchfork. She has for Kronos Quartet and choreographer Wayne McGregor, and has recently performed at the Big Ears Festival, Whitney Museum ofArt, and Toledo Museum ofArt, among others. She was named as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in music in 2023 for her composition, Perspective
Her seven-movement work Perspective was written for Third Coast Percussion through a highly collaborative process. Jlin visited TCP at their studio in Chicago multiple times to discuss their musical inspirations and new possibilities, and to explore and sample instruments from TCP’s vast collection of percussion sounds. She then created the first version of each of the work’s seven movements in FL Studio (a DigitalAudio Workstation) using these samples and other sounds from her own library.
The members of Third Coast Percussion then set about determining how to realize these pieces in live performance. Jlin provided the ensemble recordings of the full tracks as well as the stems (individual recorded parts) that make up the track. Diving into each of the tracks, the percussionists found a beautiful complexity dozens and dozens of stems in each track, patterns that never seem to repeat when one would expect them to, and outrageous sounds that are hard to imagine recreating acoustically. Even typical percussion sounds like snare drum, hi-hat, or kick drum exist in multiple variations, subtle timbral shades in counterpoint or composite sounds. Jlin named her piece Perspective as a reference to this unique collaborative process; the same music, interpreted by two different artists and their different modes of expression.
Perspective by Jlin was commissioned for Third Coast Percussion by the Boulanger Initiative, Carnegie Hall, the Lester & HopeAbelson Fund for the PerformingArts at the Chicago Community Foundation, the DEW Foundation, and Third Coast Percussion’s New Works Fund.
- Third Coast Percussion
Rattlesnake (1991) Layne Redmond (1952-2013)
Kam Balcom, Jared Emerson, Brandon Phelps, Elizabeth Skalski, Sasha Truax
Notes: Layne Redmond (1952–2013) was a composer, author, mythologist, and a lifelong student of yoga who was acclaimed worldwide for her mastery of the frame drum. Layne offered workshops and performed internationally, specializing in the small, hand-held frame drums played primarily in the ancient Mediterranean world. She is the author of When the Drummers Were Women; was named Drum! magazine's 2002 Percussionist of the Year; is only one of two women featured in Planet Drum, the book about ethnic drumming by The Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart; and was the first woman to have a Signature Series of world percussion instruments with Remo, Inc., one of the world's largest manufacturers of percussion instruments.
- Tami Simon, Soundstrue.com
Marimba Quartet (2020)
I. The Apples are Dead
II. Rain
III. Winter Light
Brant Blackard (b. 1990)
Jack Carola, Matthew Puhlman,
Drew Spina, Sasha Truax
Notes: I began writing this marimba quartet while temporarily teaching at Virginia Tech University in the Fall of 2019. While living away from family and friends, I spent my spare time binge watching movies. Consequently, each movement title has a cinematic association. The first movement was inspired by 1973’s The Wicker Man, directed by Robin Hardy; Rain is inspired by the films ofAkira Kurosawa and his frequent use of rain to depict specific emotional states; the third movement is inspired by the 1963 Ingmar Bergman film of the same name.
- Brant Blackard
Bulldog (2021)
Andrea Venet (b. 1983)
Tal Millas,Angel Ren, Vatressa Teamoh, Bailey Yerdon
Notes: My beloved English bulldog, Shosti, is no stranger to drums and percussion. She has been surrounded by these sounds her whole life. She lays under the marimba while I practice and refuses to be far from sight when I’m playing drums at home.Added bonus, most of the things she does are rhythmic with some level of consistency. For example, Shosti drinks water in combinations of 7/8 and 9/8, which is represented at letter B. She witnesses a lot of creativity that happens at home and much of it is a direct result of interacting with her in idle moments because I am a huge dork. Consequently, one hilarious and interesting thing about her is that she loves paradiddles. Whether it be drumset, or a multi-setup, or tapping a groove on nearby objects, it
instantly sets her off into a boisterous “play mode” frenzy, even from a dead-sleep. She also gets very fired up when hearing Clapping Music (Reich). ☺
Bulldog is inspired by Shosti and our jam time. The content of the piece is based on paradiddles in various forms, and includes rhythmic grooves and patterns that represent things I associate with the bulldog “freestyle”. Within paradiddle groupings of different lengths, there are variations of voicing, sticking, and patterns. One versatile thing about paradiddle language are the funky grooves that emerge when extracting one voice/hand, especially when juxtaposing over a contrasting but steady pulse. Like an English bulldog, the piece is intended to be fun, sturdy, thick, short and sweet!
Bulldog (2021) was commissioned by Third Coast Percussion.
- Andrea Venet