FSU Percussion Ensemble Concert

FSU’s Department of Music Presents Percussion Ensemble Recital

Frostburg State University’s Department of Music will present its Percussion Ensemble, directed by Dr. Mackenzie Jacob LaMont, in its spring performance on Friday, May 10, at 7:30 p.m. in the Pealer Recital Hall of FSU’s Woodward D. Pealer Performing Arts Center.

Percussion Ensemble students include Benjamin Alvey, Gavin Baker, Leah Boggs, Bryce Campbell, Jacob Deaver, Grace Giles, Jacob Hunt, Jacob Hutzell, Joseph Louie, Eileen Martin, Bella McConnell, Joe Rubens and Julia Seddon. They will be joined by guest performers Dr. Joseph Yungen, Peter Lewis and Riess Mikula.

The concert will include “Crown of Thorns” by David Maslanka, “Living Room Music” by John Cage, “Percussion Music” by Michael Colgrass and much more.

The title “Crown of Thorns” is an obvious reference to Christ’s crown of thorns, but the name first came to Maslanka as a possible title for a piece after seeing a plant called the Crown of Thorns at the New York Botanical Gardens. Crown of Thorns is a thorny desert plant from the Middle East. The rambling, interweaving, vine-like stems suggested music to him. As he meditated on the words crown of thorns and the plant, and on the idea of a work for keyboard percussion ensemble, one image that arose was a seven-starred halo. The seven-starred halo is a transcended image of the crown of thorns, the crown of highest spiritual power arrived at through the greatest depth of suffering. The imagery is Christian, but the experience transcends religion, and is universal. The music is at times sober and reflective, but more often filled with a liberated energy and joy.

One of the most influential 20th century composers, Cage pioneered a body of music that he described as “the contemporary transition from keyboard-influenced music to the all-sound music of the future.” “Living Room Music” is a piece Cage composed in 1940. It is a quartet for unspecified instruments, all of which may be found in a living room of a typical house, hence the title. “Living Room Music” is dedicated to Cage's then-wife Xenia. The work consists of four movements: “To Begin,” “Story,” “Melody” and “End.” Cage instructs the performers to use any household objects or architectural elements as instruments and gives examples: magazines, cardboard, “largish books,” floor, the wooden frame of a window, etc. The first and last movements are percussion music for said instruments. In the second movement, the performers transform into a speech quartet; the music consists entirely of pieces of Gertrude Stein’s short poem “The World Is Round” (1938) spoken or sung. The third movement is optional. It includes a melody played by one of the performers on “any suitable instrument.”

“Percussion Music” (1952) was written while Colgrass was a sophomore at the University of Illinois. After using up all his jazz drum solo ideas in “Three Brothers,” he knew he needed to look outside of jazz for inspiration and decided to experiment with a Bach-like counterpoint on drums without specific pitches. He created a “keyboard” of 16 sounds from low drums to high temple blocks that were divided among four players. Since Bach’s music was non-percussive, Colgrass intended the work to be a gentle and melodic form of drumming, providing percussionists with a feeling of musical equality and respectability with classical musicians. The toy drum part was written for cardboard-shelled toy drums. These toy drums or “timp-toms” had a very clear pitch and a long decay and inspired Colgrass to write other works for drums with specific pitches. The part is often played on roto-toms.

Admission is $10 for adults; $5 for seniors, members of the military and FSU faculty and staff; and free for students and children. Tickets are available at the University box office in the Lane Center Mondays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., by phone at 301-687-3137 or online at https://frostburgtix.universitytickets.com/w/event.aspx?id=2043. Tickets will also be available at the door on the evening of the concert.

For more information, contact FSU’s Department of Music at 301-687-4109.

Music, Performance, Recital