Youngstown State University Percussion Ensemble
Dr. Glenn Schaft - Director
Tetsuya Takeno - Assistant Director
28 October 2009
Butler North
8:00 PM
Gilded Cage
(1998) Susan
Powell
The
title is derived from the 19th century popular song The Girl in the Gilded Cage and the 20th
century percussion ensemble quartet Third
Construction by John Cage. There are numerous influences from Cage’s
notable piece, including an early quote of the opening theme, here divided
between the four performers and played on tom-toms. The “cage” theme is further
exhibited in the way the performers create a constantly evolving visual cage
with their sticks.
Conga Mix
(1988) J.
B. Smith (1957)
J.B.
Smith received the B.M. in music education from Baylor University where he
studied with Dr. Larry Vanlandingham, the M.M. in percussion performance from
the University of Illinois with Tom Siwe, and the D.M.A. in percussion from the
University of North Texas with Robert Schietroma. Smith is currently Director
of Percussion Studies at Arizona State University. Conga Mix and Slap Shift
are based on Afro-Cuban folkloric drumming rhythms.
Bomba E´
(2003) Rolando
Morales-Matos
This
large ensemble work is scored for marimbas, xylophone, vibraphone , timpani,
drumset, and various Latin instruments such as bongos, congas, cowbells,
claves, shekere´, and cua´. Bomba is one of the best-known
folkloric music/dance styles of Puerto Rico and is believed to have originated in the Congo, West
Africa.
Rolando Morales-Matos is
currently one of the solo percussionists and assistant conductor with Disney’s
production of The Lion King, on Broadway. He holds adjunct professor positions
at Duquesne University and Curtis Institute of Music and presents clinics and
master classes at many universities. Rolando performs and records regularly in
New York with various Latin jazz groups, is the percussionist in William
Cepeda's Afro Rican Jazz, a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra Percussion
Group, Extra-Percussionist with The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, The
Philadelphia Orchestra, and The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.
Slap Shift
(1988)
J. B. Smith (1957)
Passage (1994) Lynn
Glassock
Lynn Glassock is a native of Dallas,
Texas and received his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music in Percussion
Performance from the University of North Texas. His teachers have included Paul
Guerrero, Ron Fink, Kalman Cherry, Ed Soph and Leigh Howard Stevens. Mr.
Glassock teaches Percussion, Introduction to Music Technology and conducts the
UNC Percussion Ensemble. Professional experiences include performances with the
Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony, Fresno Philharmonic, musical
shows and commercial bands. He has written articles for the Instrumentalist and
music reviews for Percussive Notes. He is currently a member of the Composition
Committee, the Contest and Auditions Procedures Committee, and the Board of
Directors for the Percussive Arts Society.
Intermission
Western
Sketches (1963) Robert
Kreutz (1922-1996)
I.
Horse Thief
II.
Noble Prairie
III.
Rodeo
Robert
Edward Kreutz was an American composer of Roman Catholic liturgical worship music. He
studied music at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, Illinois and at the University of California-Los Angeles. He was best known for
the Eucharistic hymn: Gift of Finest Wheat which was first performed at
the International Eucharistic Congress in 1976, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Musique de Table (1987) Thierry De Mey (1956)
Thierry
De Mey is a Belgian film director and composer. The incorporation of
movement and rebound are the common thread at the core of his work: "the
rebuttal of the idea of rhythm as a simple series of durations in a time frame,
but rather as a generative system for impulses, falls and new developments”
constitutes the preliminary overture for his musical and cinematic endeavors.
Musique de Table is for
three percussionists, each using a small wooden table. The various sounds are
produced by different ways of striking the table with the hands and are
amplified by means of contact microphones. The piece is precisely notated with
a combination of traditional and graphic symbols.
Tribeca
Sunflower (1993) Julie
Spencer
Tribeca
Sunflower
incorporates rhythmic ideas from the gahu
music of the Ewe people of Ghana in West Africa and from traditional North
Indian classical music. The marimba mallets are wrapped in dowel rods to create
a rattle effect, suggesting the African amadinda,
a log xylophone.
Ragtime
Xylophone Selections George
Hamilton Green, arranged by Bob Becker
Log
Cabin Blues - featuring Bob Young
Spanish
Waltz - featuring Dan Danch
Xylophonia
(composed by Joe Green) - featuring Kevin Rabold
During
the last twenty years of the 19th century, a revolutionary method of playing
popular music emerged in the United States - a style of creative, syncopated
transformation and embellishment of a melody. Essentially an Afro-American
phenomenon, the style was crystallized by Black pianists into a genuinely
classical composition called the “Rag”, a word probably derived from vernacular
descriptions of the highly syncopated melodic lines as “ragged”. These melodies
were set against a steady, march-like bass pattern played by the pianist’s left
hand.
After
1915 the rag began to be transformed, and its infectious syncopation was
applied to many types of popular and some classical music. Stravinsky’s
“Ragtime for Eleven Instruments” and Debussy’s “Golliwog’s Cakewalk” are
examples. The term “ragtime” came to refer to all music that used the
characteristic four-against-three syncopation of the earlier piano rags. By 1920 a type of ragtime became
popular along with a new dance called the fox-trot. Known as “novelty ragtime”,
this music was highly technical, programmatic, and speedier than previous rag
music, and it was a perfect vehicle for the xylophone which had recently been
engineered to a high standard of quality by manufacturers in the Chicago area.
During
the 1920’s the xylophone as a solo instrument reached a peak in popularity. Xylophone
soloists appeared with piano accompaniment, in dance orchestras and concert
bands, and were heard regularly on radio broadcasts and phonograph records. George
Hamilton Green, Sammy Herman, and Harry Breuer, the best-known xylophonists of
this era, won critical acclaim as well as tremendous public esteem. All were
great artists, but perhaps the most important was George Green, who, until his
retirement in 1940, reigned supreme among xylophonists. He was a great
technical innovator, as well as a prolific composer, and hence played a major
role in the creation of an extensive solo literature for the xylophone. This
body of music came to include transcriptions of standard overtures, Hungarian
rhapsodies, violin concertos and concert piano selections, as well as original
compositions for the xylophone in the form of medleys, rags, and novelty dance
music. Notes by Bob Becker
Bob Becker, who arranged this music, is
a long-standing member of the renowned Canadian percussion group Nexus whom
have championed a revival of these historic tunes. These unique arrangements
are scored for xylophone solo, four marimbas, and a potpourri of percussive
accents.
Personnel:
Graduate:
Tetsuya Takeno Kanagawa-Ken,
Japan
David Blon North
Huntington, PA
Senior:
Kevin
Rabold, Pittsburgh, PA
Junior:
Joshua
Colson, Transfer, PA
Dan Danch, New Wilmington, PA
Matthew
Hayes, Coshocton, OH
Robert Young, Austintown, OH
Eric Zalenski, Bloomingdale, OH
Sophomore:
Dustin May,
Westerville, OH
Gino West, Poland OH
Gary White,
Warren, OH
Freshmen:
Nick Baran Austintown, OH
Keith Born, Bethel Park, PA
Dylan Kollat North
Jackson, OH
Moriah Placer Warren,
OH
Adrian Watson Cleveland, OH
Special thanks to Avedis Zildijian, Remo, ProMark.
Dynasty, and Black Swamp Percussion for their product and
artist support of Glenn Schaft and the YSU
Percussion Studio.