There isn’t a lot of music written with young percussionists in mind. For decades, many percussionists, marimba players in particular, wrote their own music. I’ve never been inclined to compose, outside of singing silly songs to my dog. But over the fifteen-ish years I’ve been teaching, I’ve lamented the amount of music accessible to many of my students. So a few years ago, I set out on a project with the goal of expanding this type of repertoire. Grants and commissions do take time, however, which is why I’m very excited to finally be presenting these new works in the coming months! Four pieces were written by Natalie Draper, Mike Laurello, Ian Power, and Justin Rito, with funding from the Peabody Institute and York College of Pennsylvania. During the spring of 2024, I’ll be playing them at schools in Maryland, Virginia, Indiana, and Michigan, with perhaps a few other stops along the way. Thanks to everyone to helped make this happen, and with a bit of luck, this is only the start of things to come!
As an addendum, I'm also excited to say that a piece by Cassie Wieland is now in the works!
Schedule of Performances: February 5th, George Mason University February 9th, the University of Maryland March 18th, Ball State University March 19th, Central Michigan University March 20th, Michigan State University March 23rd, Strike Percussion Ensemble Day of Percussion
Additionally, these pieces will be recorded throughout 2024. In the meantime, three short works from Bart Quartier's terrific book Image are below.
Bart Quartier - Image
2. Cat-Nap
10. Fuzz
11. Teething
Project Abstract: By artistic standards, percussion music is quite new. For this reason, percussionists lack a substantial body of repertoire, particularly music written for students or young performers. Percussionists for generations have tried to fill this void by writing their own music. While this is not necessarily bad, it has led to a large amount of music written by individuals who are not trained composers. My goal with the Percussion Pedagogy Project is to commission a diverse collection of composers, requesting they write five-minute pieces for solo marimba. The works themselves will be musically approachable by high schoolers and undergraduates, but still challenging enough to keep them engaged. Video recordings will then bolster the pieces within the percussion community, and have powerful impact on younger generations of performers.