The Italy Percussion Competition is set for September 5-12, 2012 at Villa Nazareth” – FERMO (Italy). For more information about the event head over to their Facebook page or the event website.
The deadline for application is the end of this month (May 31st) so be sure to get your applications in soon.
Ivana Bilic’s Marimba Week will be held October 8-13, 2012 in Samobor. The faculty this year include:
IVANA BILIC, PAOLO CIMMINO, SLOVENIAN PERCUSSION DUO, NANCY ZELTSMAN and RACHEL(XI) ZHANG
The event is sponsored by Marimba One, Adams and Edition Svitzer.
The full brochure in PDF form is available here as well.
On March 11, 2012 at Faith Lutheran Church my friend Jenny Klukken performed a wonderful marimba solo called “Zamba para escuchar tu silencio” by Guillo Espel. I first heard about this piece at the Zeltsman Marimba Festival in 2009 and then heard it performed by Angel Frette at the Marimba 2010 International Festival and Conference.
I emailed Guillo Espel directly and he provided the following program notes:
“Zamba” is a traditional Argentine folk rhythm. For that reason, the title begins by giving an idea of the style of the piece, at least for the ones who are acquainted with traditional Argentine music. As to “para escuchar tu silencio,” we can translate like “to hear your silence”. The “Zamba” is an Argentine rhythm which is very popular & important in Argentina folk music. Rhythmically this song is unique as it is written in 6/8 instead of the normal 3/4 time and is usually accented on the last count of the measure than traditional simpler zamba music.Zamba music is often written in 6/8 and performed alternately in 3/4 and 6/8 time with the accents varying between measures. Traditionally zamba music has no relationship with chamber music. This piece is unique in that I bring my own connection to chamber music into a more traditional folk style by mixing the two styles. By shifting the traditional development of chords and the expanding the melody and by using the silence in the piece I am able to mix these two styles of music and expand upon a traditionalist zamba. By the way, the criterion of structuring the “musical silence” within each piece is one of my permanent concerns.
With Guillo Espel’s permission I was able to record and post Jenny’s performance below. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Guillo’s quartet also recorded a version of this which is also a great arrangement.
To learn more about Guillo Espel you can visit his website. Thanks to Guillo for this fantastic piece which I hope will be played more frequently throughout the entire world.
The 22nd annual Concordia College Day of Percussion will be held on March 31, 2012. This year’s featured artists include the Sauk Rapids-Rice High School Marimba Choir, Pius Cheung, David Stanoch, and the Omaha Percussion Ensemble. There is no charge for the event and it starts at 8am and runs until 5:30pm.
For more information please visit the Concordia College Day of Percussion website.
Ivana Bilic will host her Marimba Week in Samobor Croatia on October 8-13th, 2012. For more information you can head over to Ivana’s website or the Facebook page for this Marimba Week.
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”.
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.
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 :
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 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, 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/