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559683 bk Percussion US 15/2/11 10:40 Page 8 New England Conservatory AMERICAN CLASSICS Recognized nationally and internationally as a leader among music schools, New England Conservatory offers rigorous training in an intimate, nurturing community to 720 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral music students from around the world. Its faculty of 225 boasts internationally esteemed artist-teachers and scholars. Its alumni go on to fill orchestra chairs, concert hall stages, jazz clubs, recording studios, and arts management positions worldwide. Nearly half of the Boston Symphony Orchestra is composed of NEC trained musicians and faculty. The oldest independent school of music in the United States, NEC was founded in 1867 by Eben Tourjee. Its curriculum AMERICAN MUSIC is remarkable for its wide range of styles and traditions. On the college level, it features training in classical, jazz, Contemporary Improvisation, world and early music. Through its Preparatory School, School of Continuing Education, and Community Collaboration Programs, it provides training and performance opportunities for children, FOR PERCUSSION • 1 pre-college students, adults, and seniors. Through its outreach projects, it allows young musicians to engage with non-traditional audiences in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes – thereby bringing pleasure to new listeners and enlarging the universe for classical music and jazz. Tower • Sandler • Higdon • Rodríguez • Schuller Frank Epstein New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble Frank Epstein is a graduate of the University of Southern California, the New England Frank Epstein Conservatory, and the Tanglewood Music Center. Having joined the Boston Symphony in 1968, he is now in his 43rd season as percussionist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He is a member of the New England Conservatory, where he also founded (in 1968) and directs the NEC Percussion Ensemble and is Chairman, Brass and Percussion Department. As Founder of Collage New Music, and Music Director from its inception Photo: Andrew Hurlbut in 1972 through 1991, he has overseen the commissioning and performance of over 200 new works written especially for the ensemble as well as the production of seventeen recordings. Frank Epstein has been involved with the Avedis Zildjian Company as a consultant on new product development (including the introduction of the Classic Orchestral Cymbal Selection), and as a clinician, conducting workshops and seminars throughout the country and in Europe. His new book Cymbalisms, a complete guide for the orchestral cymbal player, is now available from Hal Leonard Music Publishers or from his website: www.frankepstein.com 8.559683 8 559683 bk Percussion US 15/2/11 10:40 Page 2 An educator of extraordinary influence, he has been of (what I have called collectively) three keyboards, AMERICAN MUSIC FOR PERCUSSION • 1 on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and including a harp. I don’t get along too easily as a Yale University; he was, for many years, head of composer without pitches, that is, without harmony and 1 1 contemporary music activities (succeeding Aaron melody. The work is in four movements, played without Joan Tower (b. 1938): DNA for percussion quintet 9:56 Copland) as well as a director of the Tanglewood Music interruption, in a rather traditional classical format: I. Perc. 1: Hi-hat, 3 Suspended Cymbals, Medium Triangle, High Wood Block, Center, and served as President of the New England Slow accelerating to fast; II. Slow; III. Fast, a Scherzo; Medium Maraca, 2 Timbales, Tenor Drum, Bass Drum, Crotale Conservatory. IV. Introduction (cadenza-like) – Allegro (Perpetuum Perc. 2: Small Suspended Cymbal, Chinese Cymbal, Medium Tambourine, Schuller’s advocacy of other composers through Mobile). High Wood Block, Snare Drum, Tenor Drum, 2 Timbales, Crotale performance, publishing, recording, teaching and Perhaps the most interesting challenge in writing Perc. 3: Small Suspended Cymbal, Small Tambourine, Sleigh Bells, Large Maraca, administration has been as unflagging in its energy and this work was what one might call “logistics,” which one scope as his pursuit of his own musical expression. never encounters in orchestra or chamber music. In 5 Temple Blocks, Ratchet, Two Congas, Crotale writing for a large percussion group, with each player Perc. 4: Small Medium Suspended Cymbals, Chinese Cymbal, Large Tambourine, Courtesy of G. Schirmer, Inc. performing on anywhere from a dozen instruments to High Wood Block, Castanets, Snare Drum, Tenor drum almost thirty, the composer has to keep constant track of Perc. 5: Hi-hat, 3 Suspended Cymbals, Small Triangle, Tamtam, Castanets, Among the almost 180 compositions I have written there what instruments each of the nine players has been 3 Small Maraca (on cushion), Bass Drum, Crotale isn’t a single work for percussion ensemble, small or assigned, plus making sure that he or she can get to the large. No one had ever asked me to write such a piece. next instrument (whatever it might be) in time – 2 Felicia Sandler (b. 1961): Pulling Radishes 2 7:22 When Frank Epstein asked me to write him such a work, traveling time – and to have enough time to tune I jumped at the chance, especially when he told me it instruments that require tuning or, conversely, to damp Chimes, Snare Drum, Bongo, Vibraphone, Timbale, Cymbals, 2 Marimbas, would be for his large percussion ensemble at the New instruments which require that. Writing this piece was Bass Marimba, Almglocken, Glockenspiel, Triangle and Celesta England Conservatory with the possibility for a like enjoying a tremendous gourmet feast. Or to put it première at Tanglewood. The idea of writing for a lot of another way, I felt like a little four-year-old splashing 3 Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962): Splendid Wood 3 11:33 percussion with their almost limitless sound and textural wildly around in a big bathtub with dozens of plastic or possibilities really turned me on. And I can truly say, rubber toys. (We all remember that, don’t we?) My 3 Marimbas and 6 Marimba Players although I like to think I have occasionally (or even imagination was constantly fired with the excitement of often) been inspired in some of my earlier works over taking all those hundred-instruments sounds, like a 4 Robert Xavier Rodríguez (b. 1946): El día de los muertos 4 12:53 the years, I don’t think I was ever so inspired and chef’s ingredients, and mixing, collecting, combining – Perc. 1: 4 Timpani, Mark Tree, Bell Tree, Glass Wind Chimes challenged as in the case of the Grand Concerto. I wrote and/or featuring – in a seemingly limitless, inexhaustible the piece in what amounted to about six full days (with variety. Perc. 2: Vibraphone (2 bass bows), Crotales numerous interruptions). It seemed as if such a work had Gunther Schuller’s Grand Concerto for Percussion Perc. 3: Vibraphone (2 bass bows), Glockenspiel, Suspended Cymbal, Wind Gong, Maraca been in me for some time; I decided right away to write and Keyboards is part of a large-scale commissioning Perc. 4: Vibraphone, Suspended Cymbal, Large Rain Stick for nine percussionists with large setups, i.e. lots of project for Frank Epstein and the New England Perc. 5: Marimba (2 bass bows) different instruments to hit and bang on, or to coax Conservatory Percussion Ensemble, supported by a Perc. 6: Marimba (5 oct.), Tambourine (mounted) beautiful sounds from (percussionists in the last sixty major grant from Bradford and Dorothea Endicott. Perc. 7: 5 Nipple Gongs, Sizzle Cymbal, Triangle, Large Shaker, years have learned to play every percussion instrument Small Shaker, Quijada (vibraslap), Small Tamtam (tub of water) in God’s creation, from obvious things like timpani and Gunther Schuller Perc. 8: Chimes, 4 Almglocken, Large Tamtam, Large Guiro snare drum, and dozens of other types of drums, and cymbals and gongs to mallet instruments like 1 Mitchell, Stephen Ed., The Englightened Heart, p. 99. 5 vibraphone, marimba, glockenspiel, xylophone.) I also Translated by Rovert Hass. Published by Harper & Row Gunther Schuller (b. 1925): Grand Concerto for Percussion and Keyboards 25:29 knew right away that, since so many percussion Publishers, 1989 5 I. Slow accelerating to fast 4:09 instruments are what we call “non-pitched” instruments, 6 II. Slow 5:51 I would have some pitched instruments, thus the choice Notes edited by Ellen Pfeifer 8.559683 2 7 8.559683 559683 bk Percussion US 15/2/11 10:40 Page 6 Schirmer. He holds the Endowed Chair of University skeletons). These pitched sounds are accompanied by 7 III. Fast, a Scherzo 6:40 Professor of Music at the University of Texas at Dallas, triangles, bell tree, wind chimes and a variety of non- 8 IV. Introduction (cadenza-like) – Allegro (Perpetuum Mobile) 8:48 where he is Director of the Musica Nova Ensemble. pitched cymbals, shakers and unpitched gongs, with El día de los muertos is a ten-minute work for eight atmospheric use of maraca, rain stick and vibraslap, Perc. 1: Small Bass Drum, 3 Tomtoms, 4 Congas, 2 Nipple Gongs, percussionists which I began at the Bowdoin Music substituting for the uniquely Mexican instrument, the Small Tamtam, Field Drum, Xylophone, Glockenspiel Festival (Brunswick, Maine) in June, 2006 and quijada, literally the jawbone of an ass. The work’s Perc. 2: 3 Cow Bells, Sizzle Cymbal, Mark Tree, Bell Tree, completed in Dallas the following August. It was Mexican roots are reflected in the use of several popular 2 Log Drums, Triangle, 2 Glass Chimes, Marimba commissioned by Bradford and Dorothea Endicott for Mexican folk-songs, most prominently A la puerta del Perc. 3: Bass Drum, 2 Tomtoms, Field Drum, 2 Snare Drums, 2 Log Drums, Frank Epstein and the New England Conservatory cielo (At the Gate of Heaven) and La realidad (Reality). 4 Temple Blocks, 2 Guiros, Flexatone, 2 Bongos, Large Triangle, Chimes, Vibraphone Percussion Ensemble, and it was premièred by that Other melodies are El Colunpico, Los pronunciados, Perc.