I had the privilege of playing Amy Skjei’s piano solo “Whispering Pines” on marimba with Jeff Skaare on bass guitar. I hope you enjoy it!
You can check out her compositions and music at her web site at: https://amyskjeipiano.com/
Kelly Grill will be performing Emmanuel Sejourne’s Concerto for Marimba and String Orchestra on Sunday November 17, 2024 with the Watzata Symphony Orchestra at 3:00pm at the Eisenhower Community Center 1001 Highway 7, Hopkins, MN 55305.
The performance will be part of a concert entitled “Star-Crossed Lovers” and will also feature Wagner’s “Prelude to Die Meistersinger”, and Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet Suite No. 2”.
The event is free and no tickets are required. Donations gratefully accepted. Come out to support the marimba!
Enjoy the following recording of “We Three Kings” by Bruce Henczel. This was performed by myself on marimba and Jeff Skaare on bass guitar.
You can purchase the sheet music for this piece at Steve Weiss Music in the “Christmas Marimba” book:
https://www.steveweissmusic.com/product/henczel-christmas-marimba/marimba-solo
Mark Ford has asked 150 marimbists to list 1 to 4 marimba solos that were published in the last 10 years that represent the “new wave” of marimba literature. The results of that survey are at:
http://www.markfordmusic.com/new-marimba-music-survey/
What I found really telling about this list is that I only knew about 1/2 of the solos. Our generation of marimbists will probably be remembered more for how we furthered the repretoire instead of our playing but I am sure that topic is up for debate. Thanks Mark for putting this together and enjoy the list!
(updated 4/19/2015 – updated link to survey)
The International Percussion Competition Luxembourg will occur February 14-22, 2015. For more information head over to their Facebook page, and the IPCL 2015 flyer.
The event features a quartet competition so look for 3 other percussionists and start practicing! The registration deadline is October 1, 2014. Keep visiting their page for more up to date information as the deadline arrives.
The 2014 Southern California International Marimba Competition will be held from May 30-June 1st, 2014. The application process is to submit an audio recording via DropBox by March 1, 2014 which is a pretty innovative and easy way to apply.
This year Gordon Stout will be a guest jury member. The other jury members include Naoko Takada, Lynn Vartan, and Nick Terry.
The collegiate category does not require you to be in a college music program. There is also a duo category. It is open to all marimbists, so get practicing and apply! For more information head over to the SCIMC website.
The 7th annual Ludwig Albert International Marimba Academy will be held in Belgium from July 28 – August 5, 2013. The guest lecturers this year are Nanae Mimura, Chin Cheng Lin, Seung Myeong Oh and of course Ludwig Albert.
For more information please visit http://www.ludwigalbert.com. The deadline to apply is June 15, 2013.
Blake Tyson is doing a Kickstarter project to help fund his new CD “Firefish – The Music of Blake Tyson“. I have always been a fan of Blake’s compositions and am very happy to be a backer of this Kickstarter project for his new CD. You have 28 more days to donate and he is only 22% funded on this project so far. Please share the word and donate to this project!
Marco Schirripa recently interviewed Casey Cangelosi on his Percussive Arts Society blog. You can check it out over here. Marco also recently performed a recital with one of my favorite marimba solos “Land”. Be sure to take a listen to that as well.
Michael Norsworth and Nancy Zeltsman perform “Tinaja – 2006 – bananagram” for marimba and clarinet. You can see the video here.
This is an interesting piece as there are a number of stops in it. Shawn Michalek speaks about the piece at the end of the video. Enjoy.