Marimba Sass

Santa Fe Marimba Festival set for June 6-9, 2012

jeffsass — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:18:55 +0000

The Santa Fe Marimba Festival is set for June 6-9, 2012. Currently the artist list includes Gordon Stout, David Friedman, Dave Samuels, Ludwig Albert, Ivana Billic, Kevin Bobo, Pius Cheung, Chi Cheng Lin, Nanae Mimra, and Valerie Dee Naranjo.

Many of these marimbists were at the Marimba 2010 Festival and Conference so it would be a great opportunity to see many of them again. For more information on registering for the event, visit their website or contact Artistic Director Sam Lunt at “sam@santafemarimbafestival.org”.

Evelyne Glennie Master Class and concert in St. Paul November 13th

jeffsass — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 01:34:34 +0000

Dame Evelyne Glennie is performing in St. Paul on November 13th at the House of Hope Presbyterian Church. The concert starts at 2pm and is free and open to the public.

Evolution Duo Premiere Concert Oct 13 1pm Eastern Online

jeffsass — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 22:17:03 +0000

The Evolution Duo Kickstarter project “Compose. Perform. Inspire” has completed and the premiere concert will be online tomorrow Oct 13 at 1pm Eastern. To listen to the great new duo works, head over to :

http://www.piteplay.se

The Facebook page for this event also has more information including the list of composers including:

Casey Cangelosi
Dave Hall
Baljinder Singh Sekhon
David Skidmore
Csaba Zoltan Marjan
Maria Finkelmeier
Jacob Remington

I am looking forward this concert and it is great that it is being posted online since they are in Sweden! Tweet #evolutionduopremiere during the event to join the discussion.

Jenny Klukken performing Sejourne marimba concerto with Civic Orchestra of Minneapolis

jeffsass — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 19:25:24 +0000

Jenny Klukken will be performing Emmanuel Sejourne’s “Concerto for Marimba and Strings” on November 6th at 3pm with the Civic Orchestra of Minneapolis. The performance will be held at Wayzata Community Church and is free and open to the public.

I will also be performing in this concert in the percussion session. Mark your calendars and come out and see a live marimba concerto being performed. It doesn’t happen that often!

Percussion Axiom TV focuses on John Serry’s “Night Rhapsody”

jeffsass — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:21:53 +0000

Percussion Axiom TV, for the next few episodes, is focusing on John Serry’s “Night Rhapsody”. This is one of the most challenging and maybe the most misunderstood marimba pieces in the standard repertoire.

I am a big fan of this series and participated in past episodes where I played Gordon Stout’s Etude #3. For this series I will be following along “from afar” as the technical chops required to play this are beyond what I can handle and I just cannot bring myself to purchase it. I saw Leigh Howard Stevens perform this piece in Wisconsin a number of years ago and I was simply in awe at the discipline it takes to perform it.

Join the discussion over at DrumChattr by starting with the first episode at:

http://drumchattr.com/percussion-axiom-tv-episode-82-serrys-night-rhapsody-part-i/

Marimba One launches new website

jeffsass — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 16:49:33 +0000

Marimba One has launched a new website focused on sound. The new site shows the differences between the resonators and also now links to video clips of the sound of the different mallets that Marimba One makes.

I hope to see in the future video examples of the sound of the different keyboard voicing choices (how is the sound different between Premium, Enhanced, Traditional, and Educational) as well.

I always love the artist quotes on the site, but the recent one by Danny Elfman is great:

“All roads led to Ron Samuels and marimba one. We talked about what my needs and expectations were and he went and built me an instrument that exceeded all my expectations. It’s a thing of beauty, both sonically and visually. I’ve already used it in my latest score. It plays and records wonderfully. Thank you marimba one.”

Danny Elfman, Composer, Musician

Send the Rosewood Marimba Band to Puerto Rico

jeffsass — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 17:20:57 +0000

A new Kickstarter! project has started to send the Rosewood Marimba Band to Puerto Rico. One of my friends Kyle-Maxwell-Doherty is a member of the marimba band. The awards you get for helping them are very reasonable (for the $15 donation you get a CD). For more information head directly to their Kickstarter! page. Please pledge by July 31st to help them!

PercuFest 10th Annual International Percussion Festival

jeffsass — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 21:37:26 +0000

The PercuFest 10th Annual International Percussion Festival will be held in La Font de la Figuera - Valencia Spain this July. Dave Samuels, Eric Sammut are two of the headline faculty. For more information visit the official website at: http://www.percufest.com/.

Ney Rosauro, Jeff Moore 5th annual summer camp

jeffsass — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 02:32:33 +0000

Ney Rosauro and Jeff Moore will host the 5th annual summer camp at the University of Central Florida from July 17th to the 23rd. Other faculty include Dr. John Parks and Brian Potts.

More information can be found at the camp’s website.

Compose. Perform. Inspire. New Voices in Percussion Music

jeffsass — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 04:54:40 +0000

There is a great project underway at Kickstarter called “Compose. Perform. Inspire. New Voices in Percussion Music.” Kickstarter is a program that attempts to get funding for a project, in this case new percussion compositions, and only if the minimum funds are pledged does the project happen.

This one is started by the Evolution Percussion Duo and has four great composers: Casey Cangelosi, Dave Hall, Baljinder Sekhon, and David Skidmore writing compositions.

Jake and Maria have more information at the Kistarter site. They are within $600 of their goal with 7 days left to meet it. Please join me by donating so the whole percussion community receives some new compositions.