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The New York-based quartet So Percussion first electrified Columbia audiences in 2004 with their energy and jaw-dropping precision. Since then, their concerts and recordings have been praised by The New York Times as "brilliant" and by Billboard Magazine as "astonishing."
Now the group is back to perform in the final 2006-07 concert of the Southern Exposure New Music Series. The concert will be held at 7:30 p.m. April 5 in the School of Music Recital Hall. Admission is free, and the concert is open to the public.
This year, So Percussion will be in residence at the School of Music for nearly a week, coaching, rehearsing, and performing together with the USC Percussion Ensemble under the direction of assistant professor of percussion Scott Herring.
The two ensembles will combine to perform Drumming, Steve Reich's rarely heard 75-minute masterpiece from 1971.
"They'll perform Steve Reich's Drumming, the complete version," said John Fitz Rogers, an associate professor of composition in the School of Music and founder and artistic director of the Southern Exposure series. "The score requires twelve performers. There are four performers who are part of So Percussion. Under the direction of Professor Herring, our percussion students will make up the rest of the ensemble. It's an opportunity for our students to perform along side top-notch professional musicians."
Reich is often considered the single most important composer of his generation, and his work has influenced countless composers and performers from every genre. Drumming is one of Reich's great minimalist classics as well as a work inspired by his study of West African music. He composed the piece after a five-week trip to study music in Ghana.
Reich's style of composition has influenced many composers and musical groups, including Philip Glass the progressive rock band King Crimson, new-age guitarist Michael Hedges, and the composers associated with the Bang on a Can festival.
So (taken from a Japanese form of the verb "to be") Percussion's members are Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, Jason Treuting, and Lawson White. They met in Yale University's graduate program. The group has recorded three CDs, including their latest, Amid the Noise, on which the group experimented with glockenspiel, toy piano, vibraphones, bowed marimba, melodica, tuned and prepared pipes, metals, a wayward ethernet port, and all kinds of sound programming.
"If you're sick of the sounds you've got, you go and find more," said Sliwinski of the group's sonic philosophy on their Web site at www.sopercussion.com/. "There's always something to hit or rub or whatever."
So Percussion also actively commissions new work by important American composers.
In addition to their performances, So Percussion conducts educational programs, ranging from teaching adolescents to masterclasses with student percussionists and composers at Harvard, Duke, Princeton, the University of Texas, the University of Oklahoma, and other schools.
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So Percussion
