Coming to a PBS station near you later this year, is Conspirare’s Company of Voices concert. This is certainly one not to miss! Conspirare is a nationally recognized and Grammy nominated chorus that resides in Texas. What is interesting about this concert, is that many of the pieces are paired with percussion ensemble. Yes, percussion ensemble and choir.
That is pretty exciting by itself, but even more exciting is the amount of mallet instruments that are used. From the looks of things at least 2 marimbas, 2 vibraphones, and a glockenspiel were used. I also saw drumset, crotales, steel drums, triangle and other auxilliary percussion instruments.
And if that wasn’t exciting enough, the director of the percussion ensemble, Thomas Burritt joins in on the playing and also did the orchestrations for one of the pieces.
But wait, there is even more excitement! Craig Hella Johnson is a native of Minnesota, where I currently live, and went to St. Olfa College. He was quoted in one of the interviews as saying “I went to St. Olaf which was a big choral school, …, I saw the Minnesota Orchestra and I was blown away”. Oh and BTW went to University of Illinois and Julliard and Yale and Germany, etc.
To listen to Tryptych online before the PBS special, head over here, or watch the embedded video as part of this post.