4+9 – Eric Cha-Beach

4+9 was written for the So Percussion Summer Institute 2017.  The piece explores all the ways that a bar of 9/4 can be subdivided:  There are 36 sixteenth notes in the bar (9 beats x 4 sixteenth notes per beat) – and 36 can be divided evenly by 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, and 18.  The various combinations of different overlapping divisions in the bar make the underlying groupings of 16th notes constantly sound different.  I used this basic idea in a piece for So Percussion’s project ‘A Gun Show’ in 2016, but Four and Nine explores simply the pure process of hearing each possible combination in turn.

— Eric Cha-Beach

sending messages – Leilehua Lanzilotti

sending messages draws inspiration from the ceramic work of Toshiko Takaezu. Born in Pepe‘eko, Hawai‘i to Okinawan parents, Takaezu drew inspiration from the colors and textures around her. Her mastery of glazes turned her clay forms into gorgeous 360-degree landscapes.

When asked, “What makes your work relevant to the world today?” Takaezu answered, “The unknown element that comes from my work without my knowing it, the unknown intangible things that happe[n], and that make me want to see if I can do [them] over again to see if I can pursue it and get the perfect piece. It’s the unknown, the intangibles . . . the sound.”

Paul J. Smith, longtime director of the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, explains: “The artist wraps a small piece of clay in paper and drops it into the shape before closing it. This practice—which she refers to as ‘sending messages’—has become a ritual for the artist and an essential part of making the closed forms. After firing, the paper burns away from the small clay addition, which then is loose within the form.”

This piece responds to Takaezu’s interest in the unknown, intangible, sound elements of her work.

As a Flexible Commission, the work exists in two forms: as the first half of the sky in our hands, our hands in the sky, a largescale installation work I created using recordings of Takaezu’s closed forms in honor of a retrospective exhibition of the artist Toshiko Takaezu, and as this percussion quartet.

 — Leilehua Lanzilotti

Fēfē – Olivier Tarpaga

Bush Taxi

The dust, the potholes, the heat, the super old green Mercedes with hole in the bottom, the nine passengers in a four-seater vehicle.

Tarpaga’s four in three  

This is my contemporary offering of Koreduga played on modern drums and wood. This complex rhythm derived from the Koreduga rhythm, is my favorite triplet from the Mandingo empire.

— Olivier Tarpaga

Future of Anonymity – Pauline Oliveros

Pauline Oliveros’ life as a composer, performer and humanitarian was about opening her own and others’ sensibilities to the universe and facets of sounds. Her career spanned fifty years of boundary dissolving music making. In the ’50s she was part of a circle of iconoclastic composers, artists, poets gathered together in San Francisco. In the 1960’s she influenced American music profoundly through her work with improvisation, meditation, electronic music, myth and ritual.

Music for Wood and Strings – Bryce Dessner

For several years I have been experimenting with simple chorales in my music that utilize triadic chord inversions that are aligned in complex rhythm patterns to create a kaleidoscopic effect of harmony. These feature heavily in my work for orchestra and two guitars, St Carolyn by the Sea (2011), and the writing for my song cycle, The Long Count (2009).

While I have used this technique on guitars and strings, I have not had the opportunity to apply it to percussion instruments. For this new So Percussion piece I have been working with instrument builder Aron Sanchez (Blue Man Group, Buke and Gase) to design four dulcimer-like instruments to be played by the quartet.  These are simply designed double course string instruments which are played like a dulcimer, but which are specifically built and tuned to implement a more evolved hybrid of the chorale hocket. Each instrument is amplified using piezo pickups and will have 8 double-course strings tuned to two harmonies.  With the use of dulcimer mallets, the quartet players can easily sound either harmony, or play individual strings, melodies, and drone tremolos.  There are alto, two tenors and a bass instrument which can play fretted chromatic bass lines. With these elements as well as a few pieces of auxiliary percussion – bass drum, wood block – the work is about 30 minutes long.

— Bryce Dessner